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PENNSYLVANIA IN 
AMERICAN HISTORY 



By 
Hon. SamuelWhitaker Pennypacker, LL.D. 

President of the Historical Society of Penrisyivania 

President Judge of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas No. 2, 

i8g6-igo2 

Governor of Pennsylvania, igoj-igoj 



PHILADELPHIA 

WILLIAM J. CAMPBELL 
1910 






Copyright, 1910, by 
Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker 



IC!,A275r,'.8 



IN his history of the United States, Vol. i, p. 1 14, 
Henry Adams wrote: *'In every other issue that 
concerned the Union, the voice which spoke in 
most potent tones was that of Pennsylvania"; and 
again: "Had New England, New York and Virginia 
been swept out of existence in 1800, democracy 
could have better spared them all than have lost 
Pennsylvania." 

All of the papers contained in the present 
volume are the outcome of special studies, and 
almost exclusively are based upon original sources 
of information. In the main these sources are 
found among the vast and important collections of 
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, an insti- 
tution which has done much in the elucidation of 
the history of the country. 

If the effect of the book should be to call 
wider attention to what has been here achieved, 
and to cause any of the people of this state to have 
a better appreciation of that achievement, its pur- 
pose will have been accomplished. 



CONTENTS 

Anthony Wayne _ _ _ _ _ i 

Congress Hall - - - - - 8i 

The Purchase of Louisiana - - - 1 27 

George Washington in Pennsylvania - 144 

Pennsylvania and Massachusetts - - - 172 

German Immigration - - - - 195 

The Capture of Stony Point _ _ _ 208 

The Dutch Patroons of Pennsylvania - 226 

High Water Mark of the British Invasion - 257 

Matthew Stanley Quay - - - 280 

The Dedication of the Capitol - - - 306 

The Pennsylvania Dutchman and wherein he 

has excelled - - - - - 309 

Johann Gottfried Seelig - - - 319 

Sower and Beissel - - - - - 327 

The War of the Rebellion _ - - 364 

Gettysburg - - - - - -381 

26th Pennsylvania Emergency Infantry - 385 

The Origin of the University of Pennsylvania 408 

The University of Pennsylvania in its 

Relations to the State - - - 433 



ANTHONY WAYNE 

'■^ Egregias animas quae sanguine nobis hanc pa- 
triam peperere suo^ decorate supremis muneribus" 



[An address delivered at Valley Forge, June 20th, 1908, at the 
dedication of the equestrian statue of Major-General Anthony Wayne, 
erected by the Commonwealth.] 

j4 T the close of the unsuccessful campaign of 
Z-Jm 1777, which had resulted in the capture 
'^ ^^ by the British under Sir William Howe, of 
Philadelphia, the capital city of the revolted colonies, 
Washington, in writing, requested the opinions of 
his generals as to what should be his military policy 
during the approaching winter. One of them, a 
brigadier, then thirty-two years of age, after making 
a full review of the situation, recommended for the 

* This study was prepared mainly from original letters of Wayne and 
the other generals of the Revolution in the library of the Historical Society 
of Pennsylvania. 



AISTHONT WATNE 



army either a camp at Wilmington, "or hutting 
at the distance of about twenty miles west of Phila- 
delphia." The commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 
after the lapse of one hundred and thirty-one years, 
in the presence of the descendants of the men who 
fought the battles of the Revolution, to-day erects 
this equestrian statue in bronze, in memory of him 
who so accurately forecasted, if he did not deter- 
mine, the encampment at Valley Forge. She pre- 
sents him to mankind as a soldier who participated 
with honor and unusual eclat in nearly every import- 
ant engagement from Canada in the north to 
Georgia in the south throughout that struggle, and 
as the capable general-in-chief of the army of the 
United States, who later, amid vast difficulties and 
in personal command, brought to a successful result 
what has proven to be in its consequences one of 
the most momentous wars in which the country has 
ever been engaged. 

Anthony Wayne had other and earlier associa- 
tions with the Valley Forge. Within four miles of 
this camp ground, in the township of Easttown, in 
the county of Chester, he was born, and from here 
in 1758 he hauled the hides bought by his father at 



ANTHONY WAYNE 



the store in connection with the forge where the 
family of Potts hammered out their iron. 

His grandfather, Anthony Wayne, went from 
Yorkshire, in England, to Ireland, where he fought 
in the battle of the Boyne among the forces of 
William III, and he afterward emigrated to Penn- 
sylvania. 

Isaac Wayne, the youngest son of the immi- 
grant, was the owner of a large tract of land in 
Easttown, which he cultivated and where he had a 
tannery, and he was beside much concerned in the 
political controversies of the time. The popular 
party, the opponents of the proprietary interests, 
elected him to the provincial assembly for several 
terms. He had a bitter quarrel with Moore of 
Moore Hall, an old-time aristocrat and pet of the 
governor, both colonel and judge, and he has the 
lasting distinction of being one of the characters 
portrayed in the Chronicles of Nathan Ben Saddi, 
1758, one of the brightest and most spirited bits 
of literature the American colonies produced. 
St. David's Episcopal Church at Radnor, an 
ancient shrine where Parson Currie preached and 
starved, sung about by poets and written about by 



ANTHONY IVATNE 



historians, owed very much to his earnest and loyal 
support. 

Anthony Wayne, son of Isaac, looming up 
before us to-day, was born January i, 1745, and 
grew to young manhood upon his father's plant- 
ation of over five hundred acres, and about the 
tannery, traces of which still remain. He had the 
benefit of a somewhat desultory education received 
from an uncle living in the country, and he spent two 
years in Philadelphia at the academy out of which 
arose the University of Pennsylvania. The bent of 
his mind even in boyhood was to mathematics 
rather than to literature. At the time of the 
French and Indian war, wherein his father had 
served as a captain, he was at an age when startling 
events make their strongest and most lasting im- 
pressions, and in his sport he discarded balls and 
marbles to construct intrenchments and engage in 
mimic battles. At the academy he studied survey- 
ing and determined to make that occupation the 
pursuit of his life. An elaborate and somewhat 
artistic survey of the township of Vincent, in 
Chester county, made by him in 1774, is pre- 
served in the library of the Historical Society of 



ANTHONT WAYNE 



Pennsylvania, and his correspondence relating to 
military affairs is often illustrated with the plans 
which he drew. 

In 1765, when in his twenty-first year, in asso- 
ciation with Matthew Clarkson; John Hughes, the 
stamp collector; William Smith, the creator of the 
university; William Moore, of Moore Hall; Joseph 
Richardson, captain in the French and Indian War; 
Benjamin Franklin; Israel Jacobs, afterward a mem- 
ber of Congress; and others of the leading men of 
the province, he participated in an effort to found a 
colony in Canada. One hundred thousand acres of 
land on the St. John's River and a tract of like ex- 
tent on the Peticoodiac River were granted to them. 
A town was located, lots were sold, and settlers 
were transported. Wayne went to Canada with 
Benjamin Jacobs as the surveyor for the company, 
and spent the summers of 1765 and 1766 there, 
but the enterprise resulted in failure, and at the time 
of his death he still owned his proportion of these 
lands. To some extent his activities found expres- 
sion in a civil career. In several of the conventions 
which took the preliminary steps leading up to the 
Revolutionary War, he as a delegate bore an active 



ANTHONY WAYNE 



part; in 1775 he was a member of the Committee 
of Safety; for three years he sat in the Assembly, 
and he was a member of the Council of Censors, 
and of the Pennsylvania Convention which ratified 
the Constitution of the United States. These pub- 
lic services, important as they may have been, were 
only incidental and subsidiary in determining the 
the value of the labors of his life. 

With the first breath of the coming war blow- 
ing from the northward in 1775, the instincts of 
the soldier plunged him into the field and he or- 
ganized a regiment of "minute men" in Chester 
County. 

On the 4th of January, 1776, he was ap- 
pointed Colonel of the Fourth Pennsylvania Regi- 
ment. This regiment, together with the Second 
and Sixth, was formed into a brigade under the 
command of General William Thompson, and 
hurried away to Canada. Montgomery had been 
killed, Arnold had been defeated in an assault 
upon Quebec, and that army badly needed help. 
The forces from far away Pennsylvania reached 
them on the 5th of June at the mouth of the 
Sorel, between Quebec and Montreal, whither they 



ANTHONY WAYNE 7 

had retreated. Sullivan, who was in command, a 
week later ordered Thompson with 1450 men, all 
of them Pennsylvanians except a battalion from 
New Jersey under Maxwell, to attack a force of 
British estimated to be four hundred strong, at 
Three Rivers, forty-seven miles down the St. Law- 
rence. Instead of being a surprise, as had been 
expected, the effort resulted in an encounter with 
three thousand men under Burgoyne. After a 
march of nine miles through a swamp under fire 
from the boats in the river, with Wayne in the ad- 
vance, the gallant troops pushed their way up to 
the breastworks of the enemy, before unknown, 
and then were compelled to retreat. Thomp- 
son, Irvine and other officers had been captured; 
three hundred and fifty men had been lost, but 
Anthony Wayne had fought his first battle and 
received the first of many wounds, and they had 
"saved the army in Canada." Two days later he 
wrote cheerily "our people are in high spirits and 
long for another bout." Nevertheless the army was 
in full retreat to Ticonderoga, and already Wayne, 
left in command of the Pennsylvania troops, had 
found the place of danger. Wilkinson tells that 



ANTHONY WAYNE 



Allen said to him, "Colonel Wayne is in the rear," 
and if anybody could render assistance, "he is the 
man," that he found "the gallant soldier as much 
at his ease as if he were marching to a parade at 
exercise," and that when mistaken for the enemy 
by Sullivan, he " pulled out his glass and seemed to 
enjoy the panic." 

Already he had made his mark. On the 1 8th of 
November General Schuyler gave him the command 
of Fort Ticonderoga, at that time, since the British 
had in view a separation of the country by an ad- 
vance from Canada, one of the most important of 
our military posts, and placed him at the head of a 
force of twenty-five hundred men. "It was my 
business," he says in one of his letters, "to prevent 
a junction of the enemy's armies . . . and to keep 
at bay their whole Canadian force." 

He remained at Ticonderoga until April 12, 
1777. His stay there covered that depressing period 
of the war prior to the battle of Trenton, during 
which Washington was defeated at Long Island, 
three thousand men were lost with Fort Washing- 
ton, and the main army, its officers retiring and its 
rank and file deserting, was threatened with entire 



ANTHONY WAYNE 



disintegration. Difficulties accumulated around him. 
The terms of service of his soldiers expired, and to 
fill their places became almost impossible. Some of 
the soldiers, who came into camp from the Eastern 
States, on one occasion deserted the same night. 
Recruiting officers from the same part of the country 
were endeavoring to secure enlistments even in his 
own regiment. He was holding men three weeks 
after their terms of service were ended. Hearing 
that a company, claiming their enlistments to have 
expired the month before, were on the march 
for home, he halted them and called for their leader. 
A sergeant stepped to the front. " I presented a 
pistol to his breast. He fell on his knees to beg his 
life. I then ordered the whole to ground their 
arms," and they obeyed. A certain Josiah HoUi- 
day endeavored again to incite them to mutiny, 
whereupon Wayne " thought proper to chastise him 
for his insolence on the spot, before the men," or as 
Holliday himself puts it, did ** shamefully beat and 
abuse" him. The captain interfered and was placed 
under arrest for abetting a mutiny. 

The garrison had dwindled in numbers and 
one-third of them were negroes, Indians and child- 



ic ANTHONY WAYNE 

ren. The enemy were threatening his own home 
in distant Chester County, and the only comfort he 
could give his wife "Polly," the daughter of Bar- 
tholomew Penrose, was to tell her : "Should you be 
necessitated to leave Easttown, I doubt not but you'll 
meet with hospitality in the back parts of the Prov- 
ince," and yet never for an instant did he falter. He 
had studied the campaigns of Cassar and Marshal 
Saxe, and he believed that too much attention was 
given to forming lines and too little to disciplining 
and manoeuvering : that "the only good lines are 
those nature made," and that American liberty 
would never be established until the army learned 
"to beat the English Rebels in the field." He con- 
structed an abattis around the fort, octagons upon 
the top of an adjacent mount, built two new block- 
houses to render the station tenable and secure, and 
then he wrote to Schuyler asking to be sent to the 
South in order to meet "those Sons of War and 
rapine face to face and man to man." He added: 
"These worthy fellows [his Pennsylvania comrades] 
are second to none in courage. I have seen them 
proved and I know they are not far behind any reg- 
ulars in point of discipline. Such troops, actuated 



ANTHONY WAYNE ii 

by principle and fired with just resentment, must be 
an acceptable and perhaps seasonable reinforcement 
to General Washington at this critical juncture." 

He received a commission as brigadier general 
February 21, 1777, and two months later Washing- 
ton, then in New Jersey, wrote to him, "Your 
presence here will be materially wanted." For 
nearly a year he had successfully maintained the 
post at Ticonderoga, which was surrendered almost 
as soon as he had departed, and had confronted 
the proposed advance of the army under Burgoyne, 
and now after "the charming Miss Schuyler" had 
made him a new cockade, he hastened to Morris- 
town to take command of the Pennsylvania Line in 
the army of Washington. Just as, within the mem- 
ories of some of us, who are here present, Pennsyl- 
vania during the War of the Rebellion, alone of all 
the States, had an entire division in the service, known 
as the Pennsylvania Reserves, in like manner there 
were in the Continental service, throughout the War 
of the Revolution, thirteen regiments, distinguished 
for their gallantry and efficiency in the many battles 
of that sanguinary struggle, which came from the 
same State, and were united into two divisions, 



12 ANTHONY WAYNE 

designated as the Pennsylvania Line. Eight of 
these regiments were placed under the command 
of Wayne. Washington was then encamped on the 
heights of Middlebrook, whence he could look 
toward the Hudson on the one side and the Del- 
aware on the other, should Howe show a dispos- 
ition to move in either direction. He needed 
a general, active, alert and intelligent, with a 
force upon which dependence could be placed to 
cover the stretch of country between West Point 
and Philadelphia. He sent for Wayne and posted 
him in front, giving him charge of the pass on 
the most important road leading to and from 
the camp. Within three weeks an opportunity 
arose. A detachment of the British army advanced 
as far as Brunswick. Wayne made an attack upon 
these forces on the 2d of May, and after pushing 
them from one redoubt to another, finally drove 
them within their lines at Amboy. He reported to 
the Board of War: "The conduct of the Pennsyl- 
vanians the other day in forcing General Grant to 
retire with circumstances of shame and disgrace into 
the very lines of the enemy, has gained them the 
esteem of his excellency," and Benjamin Rush 



ANTHONY WAYNE 13 

wrote: "The public have done you justice for your 
gallant behavior in checking the prow^ess of Mr. 
Grant." The brave soldiers who achieved this suc- 
cess and were so praised for their efforts had never 
received any uniforms except hunting shirts, which 
were then worn out, but it is a comfort to know 
that about this time Sally Peters sent to Wayne, 
by wagon, "a jar of pickled oysters," and he was 
enabled to buy three gallons and five quarts of 
Madeira wine. Graydon, who sought the camp, 
tells us that he "entertained a most sovereign 
contempt for the enemy," but that he, who had 
been accustomed to appear in exemplary neatness 
of apparel, was now dressed "in a dingy red coat, 
a black rusty cravat, and tarnished lace hat." 
Only dire necessity could have caused the condition 
of his attire, for he still maintained that " pride in a 
soldier is a substitute for almost every other virtue." 
At last Howe, who had been waiting in the 
vain hope that Washington would cease clinging to 
the heights and would make the blunder of coming 
down on to the plain to fight him, determined 
upon an aggressive policy. On the 24th of July, 
Washington wrote to Wayne, "The fleet have just 



14 ANTHONY WAYNE 

gone out of the Hook, and as Delaware appears to 
be the most probable destination, I desire you will 
leave your brigade, go to Chester and organize the 
militia of Pennsylvania." He gathered them to- 
gether into three brigades, probably three thousand 
in number, since one of them had thirteen hundred 
and fifty-six men, and put them under the command 
of John Armstrong, the hero of the famous battle 
and victory over the Indians at Kittanning in 1756. 
"Time at last sets all things even," and a descendant 
of Armstrong is here to-day, one of the commis- 
sioners charged with the duty of erecting this statue. 
The celebrated Elizabeth Graeme, whom Aunt 
Gainor, in "Hugh Wynne," called "that cat Bessie 
Ferguson," scratched at him after this fashion : 
" Two suttlers in the rear of your division inticed 
my slave with them, with my wagon and two very 
fine oxen . . . the heat of the weather and the 
violent manner the poor beasts were drove occa- 
sioned one of them to drop down dead." 

He wanted to see his family, from whom he 
had long been separated — they were now not very 
distant — but an early battle was anticipated, and he 
had been peremptorily forbidden by Washington 



ANTHONY WAYNE 15 

to leave the army and ordered to hasten at the 
head of his division to Wilmington. The duties 
of three generals were imposed upon him, and 
yet his thought not limited to their perform- 
ance was busy with plans for the campaign. He 
feared the enemy might reach the city by the 
fords near the Falls of Schuylkill, and in order to 
prevent such a contingency proposed to march for- 
ward and give them battle. On the 2d of Septem- 
ber he recommended to Washington that three 
thousand of the best armed and disciplined troops 
make a regular and vigorous assault on one of the 
flanks of the enemy, trusting to surprise for success, 
and added : " I wish to be of the number assigned 
for this business." The suggestion was not adopted, 
but a week later Howe pursued precisely this plan 
at Brandywine and won a decided victory. In that 
memorable engagement Wayne, with his division, 
was on the left, upon the east bank of the Brandy- 
wine, where Chad's Ford offered a means of cross- 
ing the creek. Throughout the entire day he 
maintained his position, preventing the advance of 
Knyphausen, and occasionally sending detachments 
to the opposite shore, but the right wing under 



i6 ANTHONY WAYNE 

Sullivan and Greene had been turned and crushed, 
and at sunset, finding that he was becoming en- 
meshed between Howe on the front and the fortun- 
ate Cornwallis in the rear, he in good order retired. 
The steadfastness on the left saved the right from 
entire destruction. 

On the 1 8th, Washington, then at Reading 
Furnace, on the French creek, in Chester county, 
and expecting to cross the Schuylkill river, de- 
termined to detach a part of his forces to harass 
the rear of the enemy, while he, with the main 
army, should defend the fords. Such a plan neces- 
sarily involved the separation of the army with a 
river between, the close proximity of the harassing 
force to the enemy, and the danger of an attack 
upon this force by overwhelming numbers. That 
such risks were not unrecognized is shown by the 
letter of Washington written from Pott's Grove, 
September 23d, before he had learned of the affair at 
Paoli, recalling the order and saying: "Should we 
continue detached and in a divided state I fear we 
shall neither be able to attack or defend ourselves." 
However, he selected Wayne for this dangerous 
service, gave him twelve to fifteen hundred men. 



ANTHONY WAYNE 17 

and wrote to him on the i8th: "I must call your 
utmost exertion in fitting yourselves in the best man- 
ner you can for following and harrassing their rear," 
and saying further: "The army here is so much 
fatigued that it is impossible I should move them 
this afternoon.*' Evidently anxious, he the same 
day recites : " Having wrote twice to you already to 
move forward." Celerity and secrecy were both 
necessary for the success of such a venture. Un- 
happily these two letters referred to had both fallen 
into the hands of the enemy. This fact alone 
would have been fatal. Wayne, being informed 
that the British were about to march for the 
Schuylkill on the 21st, took a position on the 
high ground near Paoli, within four miles of the 
enemy, and there he established six pickets and a 
horse picket to patrol the road. At eleven o'clock 
on the night of the 20th, General Grey, with a 
much superior force, attacked him. He held the 
ground for an hour and saved his artillery, but lost 
one hundred and fifty men killed and wounded and 
had met with the only defeat of his career. A court- 
martial called at his request found that he deserved 
the "highest honor" as "an active, brave and vigil- 



ANTHONT WAYNE 



ant officer." Rumor ran through the neighborhood 
that he had been killed, that he had been taken 
prisoner, and that his life had been saved through 
his hurry in putting on his coat with the red lining 
outside. That same night a squad of British marched 
to his house, thrust their bayonets into a huge box- 
wood bush that still grows and thrives in the yard, 
"but behaved with the utmost politeness to the 
women." 

Not in the least daunted, at the council of war 
attended by twenty generals, held before German- 
town at Pennypacker's Mills on the 29th, he, with 
four others, was in favor of again giving battle. 
There can be little doubt that the spirit he dis- 
played at this time, as upon every other occasion, 
had its effect upon his companions and was influen- 
tial in bringing about that change to a more aggres- 
sive policy which led to the results at Germantown, 
Monmouth and Yorktown. **The enemy's being 
in possession of Philadelphia," he said, "is of no 
more consequence than their being in possession of 
the City of New York or Boston." On the eve of 
Germantown he wrote: "I have the most happy 
presage of entering Philadelphia at the head of 



ANTHONY WAYNE 19 

troops covered with laurels before the close of the 
day." The value of such vitality to a defeated 
army at the close of a lost campaign cannot be 
overestimated. 

At Germantown his division encountered and 
attacked the right wing of the British army to the 
east of the town, charged with bayonets, crying out 
for " Paoli and revenge," put the enemy to rout and 
pursued them for three miles, killing with little 
mercy those who were overcome. On the retreat 
of the Americans, after the check at the Chew 
House and the confusion caused by the fog, he was 
in the rear and with cannon and musketry brought 
to an end Howe's attempted pursuit. The British 
General Hunter, in his history, records: ** General 
Wayne commanded the advance. . . . Had we not 
retreated at the time we did, we should all have 
been taken or killed. . . . But this was the first 
time we had ever retreated from the Americans," 
and he asserts that Howe, swept by passion, shouted, 
" For shame ... I never saw you retreat before," 
but the rattle of grape through the limbs of a 
chestnut tree under which he stood convinced him, 
also, of the necessity. Wayne's theory that the 



20 ANTHONY WAYNE 

liberty of America would be secured when the 
British were taught respect upon the field of battle, 
was taking a concrete form. At eight o'clock that 
night, apparently unwearied by the great exertions 
of the day, he wrote to Washington, hoping for 
"their total defeat the next tryal, which I wish to 
see brought to issue the soonest possible." Two 
days later he wrote from Pennypacker's Mills a long 
letter to his wife, as remarkable as it was charac- 
teristic. He gave in detail the military movements 
of the battle, which evidently absorbed his thought. 
There was, nevertheless, one series of incidents, 
of minor importance no doubt to him if not to 
her, which had been overlooked. They suddenly 
occurred to him as he closed. "I had forgotten to 
mention that my roan horse was killed under me 
within a few yards of the enemy's front, . . . and 
my left foot a little bruised by one of their cannon 
shot. ... I had a slight touch on my left hand. 
... It was a glorious day." 

On the 27th of October, in response to a 
query from Washington as to whether it would be 
prudent to attempt to dislodge the enemy, he re- 
commended that an immediate attack be made, and 



ANTHONY WAYNE 21 

he advanced as reasons for his opinion that the 
ground was not disadvantageous, that the shipping 
in the river could assist, that in the event of failure 
they had a stretch of open country to which to 
retire, that if no attempt were made the forts on the 
Delaware must fall, affording the enemy comfortable 
quarters, and finally that the Americans would be 
forced from the field or lose more by sickness and 
desertion in a naked, discontented army than in an 
action. The subsequent evacuation of Fort Mifflin, 
with loss of control of the Delaware, and the expe- 
riences at Valley Forge seemed to justify at least 
some of his conclusions. Fort Mifflin, on the west 
bank of the Delaware, had been besieged for six 
weeks, the British had erected works on Province 
island, near enough to threaten the fort, when Wayne 
was ordered with his division and the corps of Mor- 
gan to "storm the enemy's lines, spike their cannon, 
and ruin their works." Wayne gladly undertook 
the difficult and dangerous task, but the day before 
the effort was to have been made the fort was aban- 
doned. Another council of war was held Novem- 
ber 24th and the same question broached. Wayne 
was decided in his view that the credit of the 



22 ANTHONY WAYNE 

army, the safety of the country, the honor of 
American arms, the approach of the winter and 
the depreciation of the currency made it necessary 
to give battle to the enemy, and he advised that 
the army march the next morning to the upper 
end of Germantown. He admitted the hazard 
and the undoubted loss of life, but believed that 
the bold course would prove to be the most 
effective. 

His life at Valley Forge, where his division 
occupied the centre of the outer line, was an un- 
ceasing struggle to secure recruits and sufficient 
arms to equip and clothing to cover his soldiers. 
Nearly all of the deaths and desertions, he says, were 
due to nakedness and dirt. He did not want 
rifles, but muskets with bayonets, believing that the 
mere consciousness of the possession of a bayonet 
gave a sense of security, and that without being 
used it was an element of safety. Provisions grew 
to be scarce and he was sent with five hundred and 
fifty men to the agricultural regions of New Jersey 
to collect cattle for the army. On one occasion he 
sent to the camp one hundred and fifty cattle and 
thirty horses. With the British, who crossed the 



ANTHONY WATNE 23 

Delaware from Philadelphia upon a like errand, he, 
and Count Pulaski at the head of fifty horse, had a 
combat of some severity in the neighborhood of 
Haddonfield, and another at Cooper's Ferrv. Not 
only did he succeed in feeding the army, but his 
energetic movements became the subject of a ribald 
poem, entitled "The Cow Chase," written by John 
Andre, the vivacious adjutant general of the British 
army, in which to some extent the author foreshad- 
owed his own unhappy fate, should he fall into the 
hands of Wayne. 

On the return of Wayne to the camp at Valley 
Forge he, on the 21st of April, 1778, again urged 
upon Washington that ** many reasons, in my hum- 
ble opinion, both political and prudential, point to 
the expediency of putting the enemy on the defens- 
ive." He recommended making an effort against 
Howe or New York, saying, " Whatever part may 
be assigned to me, I shall always, and at all times, 
be ready to serve you." Ere long his wish was 
gratified. The British, fearing a blockade of the 
Delaware River by the French fleet, were about to 
evacuate Philadelphia. Again Washington called a 
council of war. The advice of Wayne was "that 



24 ANTHONT WAYNE 



the whole of the army be put in motion the soon- 
est possible for some of the ferries on the Delaware 
above Trent Town, so as to be ready to act as soon 
as the enemy's movement shall be ascertained," and 
then, if the North River should prove to be their 
objective point, ''take the first favorable opportunity 
to make a vigorous and serious attack." Manifestly 
his earnestness of purpose was having its effect, 
since this was the course a few days afterward 
pursued. 

At another council of war, held on the 24th 
of June, Wayne and Cadwalader, the two Pennsyl- 
vanians alone, supported to some extent by Lafay- 
ette and Greene, declared in favor of active and 
aggressive measures. On this occasion Wayne had 
his way, and two days afterward the two armies 
were within a few miles of each other and about to 
come into contact. Washington determined to at- 
tack the rear guard of the enemy, which was pro- 
tecting the baggage train, and sent General Charles 
Lee, with five thousand men, among whom was 
Wayne, five miles in advance with this purpose in 
view. Lee ordered Wayne, telling him that his was 
the post of honor, to lead the advance, and with seven 



ANTHONY IVAYNE 25 

hundred men to assail the left rear of the British. 
Before, however, this movement could be accom- 
plished, they assumed the aggressive. A charge by 
Simcoe's Rangers upon Butler's Pennsylvania regi- 
ment was repulsed, but reinforcements in great 
numbers came to their assistance. At this time, 
while Wayne was engaged in a desperate struggle, 
the heart of Lee failed him, and he marched his 
men not forward in support, but about face to the 
rear. His excuse was that the temerity of Wayne 
had brought upon him " the whole flower of the 
British Army, Grenadiers, Light Infantry, Cavalry 
and Artillery, amounting in all to seven thousand 
men." Washington, meeting Lee in retreat, in an- 
ger assumed command and ordered Wayne, who to 
avoid capture had been compelled to follow, to take 
Craig's Third Pennsylvania, Irvine's Seventh Penn- 
sylvania, Stewart's Thirteenth Pennsylvania, a Mary- 
land regiment and a regiment from Virginia and 
check the pursuit. Holding a position in an or- 
chard, between two hills near the parsonage of 
Monmouth, they repelled two determined onsets 
and gained time for the occupation of the high 
ground by the forces sent to the front by Washington. 



16 ANTHONY WAYNE 

Finally Colonel Henry Monckton, brother of Lord 
Galway, after a brief speech appealing to the pride, 
and calling attention to the brilliant services of the 
British Guards, led them forward in a bayonet charge, 
with impetuous fury, against the troops of Wayne. 
They were unable to withstand the withering lire 
they encountered and, driven back in confusion, left 
the dead body of the Colonel on the field. Other 
efforts were continued for more than an hour, but 
in vain. The elite of the British army and the 
ragged Continentals from the huts of Valley Forge 
had met upon the plains of Monmouth and the 
fame of the deeds of Anthony Wayne was never- 
more to fade from the memories of men. ** Penn- 
sylvania showed the road to victory" was the ex- 
pression of what was probably his keenest gratifi- 
cation. " I cannot forbear mentioning Brigadier 
General Wayne, whose conduct and bravery through 
the whole action deserves particular commendation," 
was the stately and subdued comment of George 
Washington. Later a duel with Lee, which these 
events threatened, was happily averted. 

After the exertions of Monmouth there was a 
long lull in military activities. The British held pos- 



ANTHONY WAYNE 27 

session of New York, and the army of Washington, 
stretched across New Jersey, kept watch upon their 
movements. Throughout this period of inaction the 
difficulties of the continental army in maintaining 
the numbers of the rank and file, in supplying them 
pay, arms, clothing and provisions, in arranging the 
grades of the officers, were serious and so continu- 
ous as to become chronic. On the 5th of October, 
1778, Wayne wrote to Robert Morris: " By the first 
of January we shall have more Continental troops in 
the field than any other State in the whole Confed- 
eracy, but not as many general officers." At this 
time Pennsylvania had two brigades with the main 
army, three hundred men with Colonel Butler on 
the Mohawk, three hundred men with Colonel 
Brodhead at Pittsburg, and a regiment with Colonel 
Hartley at Sunbury. The service, according to 
Wayne, promised nothing "but indigence and 
want." The pay had become a mere 'Uoa: et praeterea 
nihil. The clothier general of the army refused 
to furnish them with clothing, giving as a reason 
that, unlike the other states, they had their own state 
clothier. When his men burned some fences to 
keep themselves warm, Scammell, the aide to Lord 



28 ANTHONY JVAYNE 

Stirling, proceeded to read him a lecture. *' In case 
he (the Major General) is obliged to repeat the 
orders again, he shall be under the disagreeable 
necessity of pointing out the Pennsylvania troops in 
particular," said Scammell in a reflected lordly fash- 
ion. Wayne, entirely able to hold his own, and ever 
ready to support his troops, replied : " During the 
very severe storm from Christmas to New Year's, 
whilst our people lay without any cover except their 
old tents, and when the drifting of snow prevented 
the green wood from taking fire," yes, they 
burned some rails, but fifty men had first been frost- 
bitten. The other troops " were either cooped in 
huts or cantoned in houses. ... It is not new to 
the Pennsylvanians to be taken notice of in general 
orders." It was always his effort to keep them 
" well and comfortable," and no commander ever 
had more trustful and devoted followers. 

When Dr. Jones sent to him a bear skin, he 
was delighted. Occasionally his thoughts wandered 
toward his home. To Polly he sent "A tierce of 
beer, some rock fish and oysters, with a little good 
fresh beef," saying, " I would advise you to make 
immediate use of the fish." Again he wrote to 



ANTHONY WAYNE 29 

her, " I am not a little anxious about the education 
of our girl and boy. It is full time that Peggy 
should be put to the dancing school. How does 
she improve in her writing and reading? Does 
Isaac take learning freely? Has he become fond 
of school ?" 

Though Wayne had long with the greatest 
measure of success commanded a division, his rank 
and pay were only those of a brigadier, and he never 
throughout the Revolution received the advance- 
ment to which his services were entitled. Skill in 
securing recognition and compensation is an art 
in itself often quite apart from those qualities which 
accomplish great achievements. The man who is 
really intent upon his work often forgets the 
reward. And now his superior, St. Clair, that 
unfortunate general who had surrendered Ticon- 
deroga, and who for some occult reason appears to 
have ever been a favorite with those in authority, 
came to take charge of the Pennsylvania Line. 
Wayne, after having been promised command of 
the Light Infantry soon to be organized, and bear- 
ing with him the written and eager statement of 
his colonels, Harmar, Stewart and the rest, that his 



30 ANTHONT WAYNE 

recent effort had " riveted the hearts of all ranks 
more firmly" to him and had rendered his "name 
more dear to the whole line," returned to Penn- 
sylvania. His rest was not for long. Washington 
pondered over the possibilities of a desperate deed 
of "derring-doe" requiring military intelligence and 
personal courage of the highest character, and in 
its consideration in all probability weighed the 
qualities of every general then in the field with 
him. One day, June 24, 1779, Wayne was in 
Philadelphia on his way to greet his family at East- 
town, when a post rider gave him a dispatch from 
Washington with the suggestive words : " I request 
that you join the army as soon as you can." Polly 
must forego the greeting and be left to her loneli- 
ness, and it meant a long farewell. 

Stony Point, a rugged promontory covered 
with rock and wood, extending into the Hudson 
River for half a mile from the western shore line 
and rising to a height of one hundred and fifty feet, 
stood "like a solitary sentinel, ever keeping watch 
and ward over the gateway of the Highlands. 
Bending around its western base and separating it 
from the mainland, a marsh sometimes to the depth 



ANTHONY WAYNE 31 

of two feet crept from an entrance in the river to 
the north to an outlet in the river to the south. 
An island fortress likened often in its strength and 
conformation to Gibraltar, it seemed to present in- 
surmountable obstacles to any attacking force and 
with quiet and sardonic frown to threaten destruc- 
tion. Upon the summit the British had erected a 
series of redoubts and had placed seven or eight dis- 
connected batteries, while immediately below them 
an abattis extended the entire length of the crest. 
Within this fortification were four companies of the 
Seventeenth Regiment of Infantry, one company of 
American tories and a detachment of the Royal Ar- 
tillery. About one-third of the way down the hill 
from the summit ran a second line of abattis, sup- 
ported by three redoubts, on which were brass twelve- 
pound cannon defended by two companies of the 
Seventeenth Regiment and two companies of Gren- 
adiers. At the foot of the hill near the morass 
were five pickets and the British vessels of war, 
which rode in the river, were able to sweep with 
their guns the low ground of the approaches. Four 
brass and four iron cannon, one howitzer and five 
mortars, amply supplied with ammunition, were at 



32 ANTHONY WAYNE 

the service of the garrison, which consisted of over 
six hundred of the best disciplined and most trust- 
worthy troops of the British army," commanded 
by a capable and gallant officer. At half after 
eleven o*clock on the night of July 15, 1779, 
thirteen hundred and fifty men, with bayonets 
fixed, and likewise "fresh shaved and well pow- 
dered," were waiting with Anthony Wayne on the 
farther side of the marsh to storm this formidable 
fortification. It was a most difficult undertaking, 
and the entire responsibility for the plan to be 
pursued, and the time and manner of carrying 
it out, rested upon Wayne. "So soon as you 
have fixed your plans and the time of execution, 
I shall be obliged to you to give me notice," 
Washington wrote to him on the loth of July, 
to which Wayne replied on the 14th, "I shall 
do myself the honor to enclose you the plan 
and disposition to-morrow." He determined upon 
an assault by two columns, one on the right 
and one on the left, each to consist of one 
hundred and fifty men with arms unloaded, de- 
pending solely upon their bayonets, each preceded 
at the distance of sixty feet by a "forlorn hope," 



ANTHONY WAYNE ^2 

consisting of an officer and twenty men, while a 
force in the centre were to attract attention by a fire 
of musketry, but to make only a simulated attack. 
Never in the whole history of mankind has there 
occurred a situation which gives more forcibly the 
impression of absolute solemnity — the silence — the 
stern resolution of the musket grip — the morass in 
front, with its hidden uncertainties — the dangers 
and hopes that lay beyond on the threatening mount, 
and the deep darkness of the midnight. Wayne 
made his preparations for death. At eleven o'clock 
he sent certain roughly drawn papers to his dearest 
friend. "This will not meet your eye until the 
writer is no more. ... I know that friendship will 
induce you to attend to the education of my little 
son and daughter. I fear that their mother will not 
survive this stroke. Do go to her. ... I am called 
to sup, but where to breakfast, either within the en- 
emy's lines in triumph or in the other world," were 
some of the utterances wrung from a burdened soul. 
On the way up the mount, just beyond the first 
abattis, he was struck by a ball which cut a gash 
two inches in length across his face and head, and 
felled him senseless to the ground. It was no light 



34 ANTHONY WAYNE 

wound. Long afterward he was weak from the 
loss of blood which streamed over him. Three 
weeks later his mental faculties were still benumbed. 
Six weeks later it was yet unhealed. As soon as he 
regained consciousness he called aloud: "Lead me 
forward. . . . Let me die in the fort," but con- 
tinued to direct the movements with the point of 
his spear. In a few moments the words which he 
had adopted as a signal, "The Fort's our own," 
rang over the parapet; at two o'clock in the 
morning Wayne sent a despatch to Washington 
almost as laconic as the message of Cssar: "The 
fort and garrison, with Colonel Johnston, are ours. 
Our officers and men behaved like men determined 
to be free;" of the twenty-one men in the "forlorn 
hope" led by Lieutenant James Gibbons, of Phila- 
delphia, seventeen had been shot; and a valorous 
feat of arms, unequaled in American annals, either 
before or since, ending in brilliant success, had 
caught the attention of the entire world to hold it 
forcvermore. 

At that time the laws of war permitted a gar- 
rison taken by storm to be put to the sword, and 
memory recalls more than one British victory in 



ANTHONY WAYNE -i^^ 

that and later wars stained with such cruelty. It is 
a great glory of Stony Point that no poor wretch 
cried for mercy in vain, and that all who submitted 
were saved. As an achievement, more important 
than the capture of a stronghold and the exhibition 
of valor and military skill was the fact that it cre- 
ated confidence and self-respect, and aroused a sense 
of state and national pride, public virtues as much 
needed then as they are to-day. The calm Wash- 
ington in a despatch to Congress said that the con- 
duct of Wayne " through the whole of this arduous 
enterprise merits the warmest approbation," and the 
more impulsive Greene declared that the event 
would "immortalize General Wayne" as it would 
do honor to the first general in Europe. Gerard, 
the French minister wrote: "The most rare quali- 
ties were found united;" John Jay, "You have 
nobly reaped laurels in the cause of your country 
and in the fields of danger and death;" Sharp De- 
laney, "At a Town Meeting yesterday you had all 
our hats and hands in repeated acclamation;" Ben- 
jamin Rush, "Our streets for many days rung with 
nothing but the name of General Wayne;" Colonel 
Spotswood, of Virginia, "The greatest stroke that 



36 ANTHONY WAYNE 

has been struck this war;" General Adam Stephen, 
" You have added dignity to the American arms and 
acquired immortal renown ;" Colonel Sherman, that 
his name would **be coeval with the annals of 
American history;" Lafayette, that it was a "Glo- 
rious affair ;" Steuben, "This gallant action would 
fix the character of the commanding officer in any 
part of the world;" General Lee, "I do most sin- 
cerely declare that your action in the assault on 
Stony Point is not only the most brilliant in my 
opinion through the whole course of this war on 
either side, but that it is one of the most brilliant 
I am acquainted with in history," and the English 
commodore, George Collier, that "The rebels 
had made the attack with a bravery they never 
before exhibited and they showed at the mo- 
ment a generosity and clemency which during the 
course of the rebellion had no parallel." The poet 

sang: 

" Each soldier darts amain 
And every youth with ardor burns 
To emulate our Wayne." 

The Assembly of Pennsylvania and the Supreme 
Executive Council passed resolutions thanking Wayne 



ANTHONY WAYNE 37 

and the Pennsylvania Line for "the honor they have 
reflected on the State to vrhich they belong," and 
Congress, praising his "brave, prudent and soldier- 
like conduct," ordered a gold medal to be presented 
to him, to be made in France under the supervision 
of Dr. Franklin. In the very nature of things 
such an event could not occur without producing an 
effect upon the relations of Wayne to the other offi- 
cers of the army, in some instances enhancing their 
esteem and in others, it is to be feared, arousing their 
envy, and w^ithout influencing his personal fortunes. 
He turned sharply upon Return Jonathan Meigs, of 
Connecticut, with : " I don't wish to incur any 
gentleman's displeasure. I put up with no man's 
insults." Twice within the next six weeks Wash- 
ington dined with him and, referring to a recent 
incident in the conduct of military affairs, paid him 
this high compliment: "I had resolved to attempt 
the same enterprise, to be executed in the same 
manner you mention." The minds of the two men 
had come to be in an entire accord. About the 
same time he ordered: "One pair of elegant gold 
epaulets, superfine buff sufficient to face two uniform 
coats, with hair and silk, four dozen best yellow 



38 ANTHONY WAYNE 

gilt coat buttons, plain and buff color lining suitable 
to the facing of one coat." 

There was an officer in the army holding the 
high rank of a major general for whom Wayne had 
long held an unconcealed hostility, and whose con- 
duct he viewed with suspicion. " I ever entertained 
the most despicable opinion of his abilities." "He 
had neither fortitude or personal courage other than 
what the bowl or glass supplied," were the com- 
ments of Wayne. At Morristown the officers of 
the Pennsylvania Line had refused to serve under 
his command. After this officer, Benedict Arnold, 
of Connecticut, had in 1780 planned to give pos- 
session of West Point to the enemy and the complot 
with Clinton had been discovered, while it was still 
uncertain how far the treason had extended and 
whether it might not be successful, Washington or- 
dered the Pennsylvania Line to the place of danger 
and gave them charge of that post. The First and 
Second Brigades marched from Tappan at the in- 
stant that the order came, leaving their tents stand- 
ing, without taking time to call in their guards and 
detachments, and hastened to seize the pass at Smith's 
White House, where they could dispute the advance 



ANTHONY WATNE 2>9 

of the enemy or retire to West Point as the situa- 
tion demanded. Wayne, with the rest of the Line, 
taking care to see that no more of the enemy passed 
up the river, seized the pass at Storms, from which 
a road in their rear ran to West Point, over which 
he could move rapidly and send the artillery and 
baggage. The order was received at one o'clock in 
the morning. At two they were on the march. 
It was a dark night, but without a halt they pushed 
ahead over the mountains "sixteen miles in four 
hours," and by sunrise were holding the passes. 
Washington in joyful surprise, ejaculating, "All is 
safe and I again am happy," went to bed after a 
long and uneasy watch. 

A few months later occurred that emeute 
which the writers of books have strangely been 
pleased to call " the revolt of the Pennsylvania 
Line." In the latter part of 1780 the Line had 
under arms two thousand and five men, and they 
constituted, according to Dr. Stille, as nearly as may 
be, two-thirds of the entire army. According to 
an estimate of Washington, they wxre one-third of 
his forces, and he said the army was "dwindling 
into nothing," and that the officers, as well as the 



40 ANTHONT WAYNE 

men, were renouncing the service. Within nine 
months one hundred and sixty-eight officers, includ- 
ing, however, only one from Pennsylvania, had re- 
signed. It is altogether plain that in one way or 
another, for some reason about which it is unneces- 
sary to inquire, in the main the troops from the 
other colonies had returned to their homes. 

It was of the utmost importance for the success 
of the Continental cause that the men then in the 
service should be retained, even if in doing so the 
timbers of the ship had to be strained. The men 
in the Line had been enlisted for "three years, or 
during the war." There can be but very little 
doubt as to the meaning of this contract. The 
only reasonable construction is that they were to re- 
main at most for the three years, but if the war 
should end during that period, the Government, hav- 
ing no longer use for their services, should be at 
liberty to discharge them. As it happened, the war 
lasted beyond the three years and it suited the neces- 
sities of the Government to act upon the assumption 
that "during the war" meant a time without limit. 
A large proportion of these men had been enlisted 
in 1776 and 1777, and therefore their terms of 



ANTHONY WAYNE 41 

service had long expired and they were being held 
without warrant of law. Moreover, cold weather 
had come upon them, and in the language of 
Wayne, "the distressed situation of the soldiers for 
want of clothing beggars all description." They 
had no money for their families, and Washington 
wrote that there had been a "total want of pay for 
nearly twelve months." No gentle remedy would 
have served any purpose in such a situation. There 
arose among them a hero with the plebeian name 
of William Bowser, but imbued with the spirit that 
won the War of the Revolution, a sergeant of the 
Tenth Pennsylvania Regiment. With every proba- 
bility of being shot to death and covered with 
ignominy, with the nicest propriety of conduct, 
with a certain rude eloquence, he confronted An- 
thony Wayne, George Washington, the Pennsylva- 
nia Supreme Executive Council, and the Continental 
Congress. He was absolutely right as to his con- 
tentions, and musket in hand, he gained his cause 
by force, over the heads of them all, and brought 
about a relief from the difficulties that encompassed 
them. About nine o'clock in the night of the ist 
of January, 1781, the Line arose en masses formed 



42 ANTHONY WAYNE 

on parade with their arms and without their offi- 
cers, took possession of the provisions and ammu- 
nition, seized six pieces of artillery, took the horses 
from the stables, swept the ground with round shot 
and grape, and proposed to march to Philadelphia 
and see to it that their grievances were redressed. 
Some of the officers who tried to stem the torrent 
were killed. Some of the men were stricken with 
swords and espontoons and their bodies trampled 
beneath the hoofs of the horses. Then there were 
conferences, Joseph Reed, President of Pennsyl- 
vania, and the Congress began to stir themselves 
and to make strenuous effiarts to meet the troubles 
of the situation. For two weeks the men kept up 
a perfect discipline and permitted Wayne, with 
Colonels Butler and Stewart, to come and go 
among them. Sir Henry Clinton sent two emis- 
saries to them with a written proposition to affiDrd 
them protection, to pay in gold all the arrears of 
wages due from the Congress, and to exempt them 
from all military service. It was no doubt a tempt- 
ing offer. It would have ended the war, and the 
Colonies would have remained dependencies. These 
patriots were not made of such stuff. They at once 



ANTHONY WAYNE 43 

handed over to Washington the British agents, who 
were on the 1 2th promptly hanged. Reed had 
the indelicacy to offer a reward in money, which 
Bowser declined because the spies had been surren- 
dered "for the zeal and love of our country." In 
the end the Government discharged twelve hundred 
and fifty men whose terms had expired, thus admit- 
ting its delinquency, gave to each poor fellow a pair 
of shoes, an overall and a shirt, and promised that 
the "arrearages of pay (were) to be made up as 
soon as circumstances will admit." The greater 
number of the men willingly reenlisted and Israel 
went back to its tents. "The path we tread is 
justice and our footsteps founded upon honor," 
announced Sergeant Bowser. 

The war now drifted to the southward, and 
Wayne with eight hundred men of the Pennsylva- 
nia Line appeared in Virginia. Washington ordered 
the Line to be transferred to the southern army, 
and wishing a brigadier to go with the first detach- 
ment so as to be ready to form the whole, wrote to 
Wayne: "This duty of course devolves upon you." 
Lafayette, then in Virginia, warmly expressed his 
gratification and Greene did not hesitate to declare: 



44 ANTHONY WAYNE 

"You must know you are the Idle [Idol] of the 
legion." 

A tragedy preceded the movement of the 
troops into the campaign. As has been shown, 
they had been promised that the arrearages of their 
wages would be paid to them. The money came 
while they were in York, in Pennsylvania, but it 
was the paper of the Continental Congress. Ac- 
cording to Wayne, this paper was then worth about 
one-seventh of its face value, and the people of the 
neighborhood declined to accept it in exchange for 
what they had to sell. On the 24th of May a few 
men on the right of each regiment, when formed 
in line, called out that they wanted "real, and not 
ideal, money," and that "they were no longer to 
be trifled with." These men were ordered to retire 
to their tents, and they refused to go. The officers, 
who had come prepared, promptly knocked them 
down and put them in confinement, a court-martial 
was ordered on the spot, the trial proceeded before 
the soldiers paraded under arms, and in the course 
of a few hours the accused were convicted of 
mutiny and shot. Says Wayne : " Whether by 
design or accident the particular friends and mess- 



ANTHONY WAYNE 45 

mates of the culprits were their executioners." 
Our patriotic forefathers of the Revolutionary War 
were not altogether gentle and mild-mannered per- 
sons. To Polly, whose tender heart must have been 
moved by the painful recital, he explained : " I was 
obliged to make an exemplary punishment, which 
will have a very happy effect." But we find more 
relief in a letter he wrote about the same time to 
Nicholson, the paymaster : " My feelings will not 
permit me to see the widows and orphans of brave 
and worthy soldiers who have fought, bled and 
died under my own eye, deprived of those rights 
they are so justly entitled to," His careless servant 
Philip lost the greater part of his table linen and 
napkins; his carriage and its horses, his baggage 
wagon with its four horses, a driver and four sol- 
diers were at the plantation of Colonel Simm; 
" But hark, the ear piercing fife, the spirit stirring 
drum, and all the pomp and glorious circumstance 
of war" summoned him to horse, and away they 
hurried to Virginia, crossing the Potomac with 
artillery and baggage upon four little boats, one of 
which sank, drowning a few men, and reaching 
Leesburg, a distance of thirty miles, in two days. 



46 ANTHONY WAYNE 

On another day, when there was no river to cross, 
they marched twenty-two miles. As had grown to 
become customary, in the Virginia campaign as 
elsewhere, Wayne went to the front. On the 25th 
of June Lafayette wrote : " Having given you the 
command of our advanced corps, consisting of 
Butler's advance and your Pennsylvanians, I request 
you to dispose of them in the best way you think 
proper." 

Cornwallis had his headquarters at Portsmouth 
and held control of the peninsula between the York 
and the James rivers, while Lafayette, whose force 
was much inferior, marched hither and yon in an 
effort to prevent the British detachments from get- 
ting supplies and if possible to cut them off and 
effect their capture. On the 6th of July what he 
thought to be the coveted opportunity arose. In- 
formation came that Cornwallis, in moving down 
the James river, had left his rear guard on the 
eastern bank near Green Spring, and that his army 
was divided with a river between. Lafayette ordered 
Wayne, with eight hundred men, nearly all of them 
from Pennsylvania, and three field pieces, to make 
an attack upon this rear guard. After crossing a 



ANTHONY WAYNE 47 

swamp by means of a causeway, and coming upon 
the enemy, they discovered too late that the infor- 
mation was erroneous, and that they were con- 
fronted by the whole British army of four thousand 
men under command of Cornwallis himself. The 
lion, awakened from his sleep, sprang forward in a 
dangerous mood and soon flanking parties began to 
envelop Wayne upon both sides. Here was a seri- 
ous problem — a swamp in the rear, an enemy on 
the front, and overwhelming forces closing around. 
What was to be done? Lafayette hurried off an 
aide to bring up his army, but they were five mile 
away, and what might not be accomplished while 
ten miles of country were being traversed? To 
retreat was to be utterly lost. To stand still meant 
ultimate capture. Situations such as these, requiring 
the capacity to think accurately in the midst of un- 
expected crises, which Hooker was unable to do at 
Chancellorsville, and the character bravely and vig- 
orously to act upon the conclusions reached, in 
which Lee failed at Monmouth, furnish the real 
test of military ability. Wayne boldly ordered a 
charge, the troops had entire confidence in his 
leadership, and he succeeded. Cornwallis, with 



48 ANTHONY WAYNE 

an estimated loss of three hundred in killed and 
wounded, retired toward Portsmouth to meet his 
now threatened fate. Of the Americans one hun- 
dred and twenty were killed or wounded. Lafay- 
ette in general orders proclaimed : " The general is 
happy in acknowledging the spirit of the detach- 
ment commanded by General Wayne in their en- 
gagement with the total of the British Army. . . . 
The conduct of the Pennsylvania field and other 
officers are new instances of their gallantry and 
talents." Greene, who had a somewhat undue 
respect for the British general, wrote : " Be a little 
careful and tread softly, for depend upon it you have 
a modern Hannibal to deal with in the person of 
Cornwallis. Oh, that I had had you with me a 
few days ago." 

Washington placidly wrote: *' I cannot but 
feel myself interested in the welfare of those to 
whose gallant conduct I have so often been a wit- 
ness," while the more youthful and mercurial Light 
Horse Harry Lee could not restrain his enthusiasm, 
almost shouting: "I feel the highest joy in know- 
ing that my dear friend and his gallant corps dis- 
tinguished themselves so gloriously." 



JNTHONT WAYNE 49 

The wounded soldiers lacked hospital accom- 
modations and supplies. Wayne ordered them to 
be furnished, and if there should be trouble about 
the payment, "place it to my account." This was 
not the first time he assumed individual pecuniary 
responsibility for the relief of his men and the 
welfare of the cause. In 1777, when there was 
great distress for want of provisions, he sent ten 
head of cattle to the army from his own farm and 
had not been paid for them as late as 1780. 

The Continental army and the French fleet 
were about to concentrate and close in around 
Cornwallis, and in keeping him occupied and pre- 
venting the Virginia raids the army of Lafayette 
had borne its part in bringing about the result. 
On one occasion Wayne made, as he says, a push 
for Tarleton at Amelia, but the doughty Colonel 
had precipitately retreated. It seems almost a pity 
that they could not have come together. In August, 
for six days during a period of two weeks, the 
soldiers of Wayne had been "without anything to 
eat or drink except new Indian corn and water. 
. . . Neither salt, spirits, bacon or flour," but such 
inconvenience did not dampen their ardor. For a 



50 ANTHONY WAYNE 

time Wayne had been at Westover, and he im- 
pressed his hostess, the courtly Mrs. Byrd, who 
wrote: "I shall ever retain the highest sense of 
your politeness and humanity, and take every op- 
portunity of testifying my gratitude." The part 
he took in holding Cornwallis was important. On 
August 31st, Lafayette thought that if Cornwallis 
did not that night cross to the south of the James, 
twenty-iive ships of the Comte de Grasse having 
been sighted, he would have to stand a siege. The 
Marquis sent Wayne over the river and wrote, ** now 
that you are over, I am pretty easy." Wayne posted 
his men at Cobham on the south side of the James, 
opposite to Cornwallis, with nothing but the river 
between them, selected a location on James island 
for three thousand of the French, who had landed 
too far below to be effective in preventing the 
possible retreat of Cornwallis, and then at eight 
o'clock in the night mounted his horse and rode ten 
miles to hold a conference with Lafayette, who had 
sent an express rider to point out the way. About 
ten o'clock he arrived at the camp, whereupon the 
sentry upon guard shot him. He had given the pass- 
word, but the unfortunate guard, whose mind was in- 



ANTHONY WAYNE 51 

tent upon the proximity of the British, made a mis- 
take. In the midst of the alarm created, Wayne had 
great difficulty in preventing the whole squad from 
firing at him. The ball struck in the middle of the 
thigh, grazed the bone, and lodged on the other 
side. Instantaneously he felt a severe pain in the 
foot which he called the gout. For two weeks he 
was out of service and at the end of that time 
could only move around in a carriage. For the 
guard he had only sympathy, and he called him a 
"poor fellow," but he vented his indignation upon 
Peters: "Your damned commissary of military plays 
false. He has put too little powder in the musket 
cartridges. ... If the damned cartridge had a suf- 
ficiency of powder the ball would have gone quite 
through in place of lodging." In view of the pain 
and the patriotism we may surely, like the record- 
ing angel, pardon the profanity. That he accurately 
understood the surrounding conditions and that his 
judgment as to the outcome was sound, appears 
from a letter of September i 2th, wherein he says : 
"We have the most glorious certainty of very soon 
obliging Lord Cornwallis with all his army to sur- 
render prisoners of war." What a contrast these 



52 ANTHONY WAYNE 

thoughts present to those of another letter written 
on the same day to his little daughter: "If you 
have not already begun your French I wish you to 
request that lady to put you to it as soon as possible. 
. . . Music, dancing, drawing. . . . Apropos have 
you determined to hold your head up?" 

One of the final attacks at Yorktown was sup- 
ported by two battalions of Pennsylvania troops and 
the second parallel of the approaching works of the 
besiegers they and the Maryland troops completed. 
When Cornwallis on the 19th surrendered, the 
guards for one of his fortifications were selected 
from the French, and for the other from the Penn- 
sylvania and Maryland troops. Since the French 
had a fleet of thirty-seven vessels of war, and an 
army twice as numerous as that of the Colonies, 
Wayne was sufficiently just to concede that the vic- 
tory was not altogether due " to the exertions of 
America." 

Soon after the surrender an incident occurred 
which shows what personal manliness and apprecia- 
tion of the duty of a soldier actuated Wayne in his 
conduct. He was suffering from the effects of his 
recent wound and asked for a short leave of absence. 



ANTHONY WAYNE 53 

Washington, who was himself about to go north 
to Philadelphia, where he remained until March, 
but whose purpose was to send Wayne to the 
south, where the war still lingered, gave a not very 
cheerful assent. Whereupon Wayne wrote: "As a 
friend I told you that my feelings were hurt. As a 
soldier I am always ready to submit to difficulties. 
. . . Your Excellency puts it upon a ground which 
prevents me from accepting," and getting into a 
carriage, with such rapidity of progress as was prac- 
ticable, he made his way to Greene in South Caro- 
lina along with the Pennsylvania Line. 

Greene sent him to Georgia, and much to his 
regret, without his old troops. However, he had 
about four hundred dragoons, one hundred and sev- 
enty infantry, a detachment of field artillery, and 
such militia as could be raised from time to time. 
The British had possession of Savannah with thir- 
teen hundred regulars, five hundred militia, and an 
indefinite number of refugees and Creek and Cher- 
okee Indians. The people of Georgia were so 
impoverished that the Legislature authorized the 
Governor to seize ten negroes and sell them in order 
to secure his salary. The country below the Briar 



54 ANTHONY WAYNE 

creek between the Ogeechee and Savannah rivers 
had become a complete desert. The Whigs and 
Tories maintained a partisan warfare of the most 
desperate character, in which mercy to prisoners 
was neither expected nor shown. Into this caul- 
dron Wayne plunged, and for the first time in his 
career he determined for himself the features of a 
campaign. It is interesting to observe what was ex- 
pected of him and what were the facilities afforded 
him for its accomplishment. At the outset Greene 
sounded this note of warning: "Your reputation 
depends more on averting a misfortune than on 
achieving something very great. Brilliant actions 
may fade, but prudent conduct never can. Your 
reputation can receive no additional lustre from 
courage, while prudential conduct will render it 
complete," and when it came to the methods to 
be pursued his suggestions were equally definite and 
helpful : " I think you should try to hold out en- 
couragement to the Tories to abandon the enemy's 
interest and though you cannot promise positively 
to pardon them you may promise to do all in your 
power to procure it." In brief, Greene had noth- 
ing to offer, and his utmost hope was that no dis- 



ANTHONY WAYNE ^^ 

aster should occur. Wayne, in the early part of 
January, 1782, threw up intrenchments at a point 
on the Savannah river twenty-five miles above the 
city of Savannah and established a line across to 
the Ogeechee, intended to separate the British from 
their Indian allies and to cut off the sources of 
supplies. Immediately things began to move and 
the prospect to brighten. Wayne drafted a pro- 
clamation to be issued by the Governor of Georgia 
offering full pardon to the Tories. At the end of 
six weeks not an officer or soldier had had an op- 
portunity to remove his clothing, but by January 
26th the British had been driven from three of 
their outposts. The Choctaws, on their way to 
Savannah, January 30th, were intercepted, twenty- 
six warriors, six white men and ninety-three pack- 
horses captured, and while hostages were held the 
chiefs were sent back to their tribe with messages 
of friendliness and peace. By the middle of Feb- 
ruary the British were confined to the city. On 
the last day of the same month he burned a lot of 
British forage within half a mile of Savannah. On 
one occasion he had a personal rencontre with a 
Creek chief, in which the chief killed his horse, 



S6 ANTHONT WAYNE 

and he cut down the Indian with his sword. On 
the 2 1 St of April he heard again from Greene, who 
wrote: "General Barnwell tells me you talk of 
taking position nearer the enemy. It is not my 
wish you should," to which Wayne, who held a 
different view, replied : " I never had an idea of 
taking a position within striking distance, but such 
a one as would tend to circumscribe the enemy 
without committing myself. Such a position is 
about six miles in our front, and if I am joined 
by a corps of gentlemen under Colonel Clarke 
agreeable to promise, I shall take it." The next 
day Greene wrote that there was no ammunition 
with which to meet the demands of Wayne, that 
he had no arms to send, that the cartouche-boxes 
were all in use, and ordering that Captain Gill be 
withdrawn to join his own army. With the order 
recalling Gill, Wayne instantly and reluctantly 
complied. 

On the 2 1 St of May the Seventh Regiment of 
British Infantry, with a force of cavalry, Hessians, 
Choctaw Indians, and Tories, moved out to the dis- 
tance of four miles from Savannah. In the night 
Wayne crossed the swamp, which was thought to 



ANTHONY WAYNE 57 

be a protection, attacked and routed them with 
great loss, made a number of captures, including 
Lieutenant Colonel Douglass and thirty horses, and 
the next morning rode within sight of the city. 

" Wise commanders always own 
What's prosperous by their soldiers done," 

and Greene expressed his pleasure by saying: "You 
have disgraced one of the best officers the enemy 
have." In an effort to drag Greene along still 
further, Wayne wrote: "Do let us dig the caitiffs 
out. It will give an eclat to our arms to effect a 
business in which the armament of our great and 
good ally failed." Fortunately we have more than 
the usual amount of information concerning the 
minor incidents and the manner of life through 
this campaign. Captured Indians were treated 
with kindness and kept in a room with fire so that 
they could do their cooking. We are told by 
Wayne that " Cornell is a dangerous villain. He 
must be properly secured or bought." To Polly, 
"My dear girl," he wrote, "tell my son when he 
is master of his Latin grammar I will make him a 
present equal to his sister's when she is mistress of 
her French." 



58 ANTHONY WAYNE 

The whole force of the militia of Georgia 
consisted of ninety men. There were numbers of 
the men who had nothing like a coat. There was 
only one camp kettle to every twenty men. An 
officer who came to camp with a letter of introduc- 
tion was entertained with cold beef, rice and "alli- 
gator water," but at a more happy time we catch 
sight of "a quarter cask of Madeira wine, ten and 
a half gallons of rum, and about two hundred 
weight of Muscavado sugar." When a dragoon 
was scalped and his body dragged about the streets 
of Savannah, Wayne proposed to make victims of 
an Indian chief and a British officer. He prevented 
Mrs. Byng, a free quadroon, from being sold as a 
slave with her children, though her husband had 
been executed "as a villain, a murderer and outlaw." 
A lady asked to see him and sent him a union 
cockade, to which he gallantly replied: "Nature 
has been but too partial in furnishing Miss Maxwell 
with every power to please. Notwithstanding these 
dangerous circumstances, the general as a soldier 
cannot decline the interview." The personal servant 
of the British Captain Hughes, who had been cap- 
tured, he on request sent back, and the captain 



ANTHONY WAYNE 59 

appreciated "the uncommon attention and extreme 
courtesy." 

Through it all Greene kept up a constant nag- 
ging. "You will please order the same issues as 
are directed in this army. I am willing the troops 
should have what is sufficient, but by no means 
more," and at another time, "I was told you pro- 
posed to get some clothing from Charlestown and 
pay in rice. ... I wish you therefore to avoid it 
nor attempt anything of the kind," were some of 
his cheering messages. On the 6th of June he 
rather overdid himself, writing : " Far less regular- 
ity and economy has been made use of in the 
subsistence of your troops than I could have wished. 
... I find one pound and a quarter of beef and 
one pound and a quarter of rice is a sufficient ration 
for any soldier . . . both men and officers should 
be allowed a reasonable subsistence, but nothing is 
more pernicious than indulgence." In one sense no 
letter was ever more happily conceived. It called 
forth and secured for our benefit a pen sketch by 
Anthony Wayne of one of his campaigns, which is 
a contribution to historical literature. In response 
Wayne said: "I have received yours of the 6th 



6o ANTHONY WAYNE 

inst. on the subject of rations and economy. . . . 
I am extremely obliged to you for the anxiety you 
express for every part of my conduct to appear in 
the most favorable light. . . . On the 19th of Jan- 
uary we passed the Savannah river in three little 
canoes, swimming the horses ; that by manoeuvres 
we obliged the enemy to abandon every outpost and 
to retire into the town of Savannah ; that we found 
the country a perfect desert, neither meat or bread 
kind, except what was within the influence of their 
arms; that notwithstanding this circumstance and 
surrounded by hostile savages we subsisted ourselves 
from the stores of the enemy at the point of the 
sword until with the assistance of a few reclaimed 
citizens, artificers and slaves we built a number of 
large boats and rebuilt twelve capital bridges for the 
purpose of transportation, and three respectable re- 
doubts to enable us to hold the country, without 
any other expense to the public than a few hun- 
dred bushels of rice and beef in proportion, which 
beef as well as at least one-third of all that has 
yet been issued in this army cost the United States 
nothing except the lives of three or four men ; the 
very salt we used was made by ourselves, and the 



ANTHONY WAYNE 6i 

iron, etc., with which our horses were shod, boats 
built, wagons repaired, espontoons made and every 
kind of smithwork done were also procured without 
any cost to the public except for a very small pro- 
portion for which, as well as the labor, we were 
necessitated to barter some articles of provisions. 
We were also obliged to exchange some rice and 
meat for leather and thread to make and repair the 
horse accoutrements, harness, etc., or to abandon 
the country. . . . No army was ever supported for 
less expense or more service rendered in proportion 
to numbers than on the present occasion. ... If 
severe discipline, constant duty, perpetual alarm, and 
facing every difficulty and danger be an indulgence, 
I candidly confess that the officers and men under 
my command have experienced it to a high degree." 
At half after one o'clock on the night of June 
the 24th the Creek Indians, with British assistance, 
made an attack upon the post, but after the first 
surprise were soon routed, leaving many dead, in- 
cluding two white men, on the field. One hundred 
and seven horses were among the spoils, but their 
masters, the Indian braves, were subjected to "the 
bayonet to free us from encumbrance." 



62 ANTHONY WAYNE 

The end of it all was that, on the iith of 
July, the British sailed away from Savannah to the 
West Indies. On the i 2th Wayne, at the head of 
his horsemen, rode in triumph through the streets 
of the city and the soil of Georgia was never again 
trodden by the feet of the enemy. The grateful 
State set apart four thousand guineas to buy for 
Wayne a tract of land, and the captious but con- 
verted Greene bore tribute before the Congress to 
his "singular merit and exertions." 

He had one further and final service to render 
to his country in the War of the Revolution. When 
on the 14th day of December, 1782, the British 
forces marched out of the city of Charleston, leav- 
ing at last the southern colonies to rest and peace, 
two hundred yards in their rear, at the head of that 
part of the Continental army, bringing with him 
promise and hope, Anthony Wayne rode into the 
relieved city, a fitting climax to his many efforts 
and trials through the eventful struggle. 

The ensuing ten years Wayne spent in civil 
pursuits and private life, endeavoring to recover 
from the effects of a malarial fever contracted in 
Georgia, at one time believed to be fatal, and strug- 



ANTHONT WAYNE 63 



gling with those financial difficulties which beset 
men who devote their energies to the public service 
instead of to the betterment of their own fortunes. 
Throughout all of this period, notwithstanding the 
treaty of peace, the embers of the war were still 
smouldering, and it was not until after the close of 
the second contest of 1 8 1 2 that Americans could 
feel secure in their independence. The country west 
of the Ohio was occupied by Indian tribes ever 
ready to bring devastation, destruction and desola- 
tion to the homes of the border settlers, and ever 
incited and aided by the British, who held a num- 
ber of posts along the lakes. Washington, who had 
become President of the United States, selected, to 
command forces sent to overawe them, Harmar and 
St. Clair in succession, and each was in turn defeated, 
the latter with circumstances of peculiar horror and 
dismay from the loss of such noted soldiers as Butler 
and Crawford, the latter burned at the stake. Then 
he sent for Anthony Wayne, gave him at last the 
commission of a major general, and placed him in 
command of the Army of the United States. In 
modest and serious words Wayne accepted the re- 
sponsibility. " I clearly foresee that it is a com- 



64 ANTHONY WAYNE 

mand which must inevitably be attended with the 
most anxious care, fatigue, and difficulty, and from 
which more may be expected than will be in my 
power to perform, yet I should be wanting both in 
point of duty and gratitude to the President were I 
to decline an appointment however arduous to which 
he thought proper to nominate me," was the lan- 
guage of his letter to the Secretary of War, April 
13th, 1792. 

The underlying motive of the war was the 
determination of the Indians to make the river 
Ohio the permanent boundary between them and 
the United States, and the fact that after the con- 
cession by Virginia of her western claims the Ohio 
Company, under the leadership of Rufus Putnam, 
had established a settlement within what is now the 
state of Ohio. Within seven years fifteen hundred 
people had been massacred. Another defeat, said the 
Secretary of War with auspicious suggestion, would 
be ruinous to "the reputation of the Government." 
In its origin, in its conduct, in its results, and even in 
its details, the expedition was almost a repetition of 
the march of Caesar into Gaul. The fierce savages 
of a vast and unknown territory were about to be 



ANTHONY WAYNE 65 

subjected, and an empire of civilization to be erected 
upon the lands over which they held sway. Wayne 
organized his army in Pittsburg and some such fore- 
cast must have occurred to the minds of those in 
authority, for it was called not an army but a legion. 
This legion, it was intended, should be composed of 
over four thousand men, but there were actually 
under arms two thousand six hundred and thirty- 
one. Where it was recruited appears with approx- 
imate accuracy in June, 1793, when the Secretary of 
War sent one hundred and nineteen men from 
Pennsylvania, one hundred and one from Virginia, 
one hundred and one from New Jersey and thirty 
from Maryland, and when Wayne issued a call 
for volunteers for six weeks, one hundred and 
sixty-six from Ohio, one hundred and sixty-four 
from Westmoreland, one hundred and sixty-four 
from Washington, eighty from Fayette, and eighty- 
two from Allegheny, these last four being counties 
in Pennsylvania. Along with the organization of 
the legion came the most rigid enforcement of dis- 
cipline. During the progress of the campaign, in 
which the greatest vigilance was necessary, at least 
two soldiers were shot to death for sleeping on their 



66 ANTHONY WAYNE 

posts. When Wayne found some of them drunk in 
the village, now the city of Cincinnati, he ordered 
that no passes be thereafter granted. Whiskey was 
kept out of the camp. Careful directions were issued 
describing the methods of meeting attacks upon each 
flank and upon the rear. He placed reliance on the 
bayonet and the sword, and urged his men not to 
forget that "the savages are only formidable to a 
flying enemy." The crowns of the hats of the men 
were covered with bear skin. He insisted upon 
cleanliness of person and regularity of diet. " Break- 
fast at eight o'clock, dine at one; meat shall be 
boiled and soup made of it ... a good old soldier 
will never attempt to roast or fry his meat." Every 
day the field officers, sub-lieutenants and captains of 
the guard dined with him, and his salary did not 
pay the expenses of the table. One hundred lashes 
with wire cats were sometimes inflicted as punish- 
ment. He adroitly sowed and cultivated dissensions 
among the Indians, having in his army the chief 
Cornplanter as well as ninety Choctaws and twenty- 
five Chickasaws. The war lasted lor over two years, 
and we are enabled to appreciate the condition of the 
wilderness in which it was conducted when we learn 



ANTHONY WAYNE 67 

that he was without communication from the Sec- 
retary of War in Philadelphia from December to 
April. The British, contrary to the provisions of 
the treaty of peace, had established certain posts 
within the country and Wayne was given authority 
if he found it necessary to dislodge them. To his 
wisdom and discretion, therefore, was trusted the 
grave question of renewing the war with England. 
Just before the march an interesting incident oc- 
curred. On the I St of June, 1792, he granted a 
leave of absence to Alexander Purdy, a soldier in 
Captain Heth's company, in order that he might 
assist in printing at Pittsburg a pamphlet written by 
Hugh H. Brackenridge, " the first publication of 
the kind ever proposed in the western country." 

Late in the summer of 1792 he moved his 
army twenty-seven miles down the Ohio river and 
there encamped for the winter. In May of 1793 
he advanced as far as the site of Cincinnati. Like 
all human movements in which various forces are 
concerned, there was much delay due to differences 
of views and divergences of counsels. Wayne had 
reached the conclusion that we should never have a 
permanent peace until the Indians were taught to 



68 ANTHONY WAYNE 

respect the power of the United States, and until 
the British were compelled to give up their posts 
along the shores of the lakes. In Philadelphia the 
government was timid about entering upon the 
war, and previous defeats had made it fearful of the 
outcome, Knox, the Secretary of War, wrote that 
the sentiments of the people "are averse in the ex- 
treme to an Indian war," and again "it is still more 
necessary than heretofore that no offensive opera- 
tions should be undertaken against the Indians," 
and finally that a "defeat at the present time and 
under the present circumstances would be perni- 
cious in the highest degree to the interests of the 
country." While the hostile Indians were perfect- 
ing their combinations and holding their pow-wows 
with Simon Girty and an aide of the British Colonel 
Simcoe, who promised them protection as well as 
arms, ammunition, and provisions, the government 
sent B. Lincoln, Beverly Randolph and Timothy 
Pickering to Fort Erie to negotiate for peace. The 
result of these efforts was that after gaining what 
time was needed the Indians refused to treat at all, 
and the duty fell upon Wayne to see that the com- 
missioners reached home with their scalps on their 



ANTHONY WAYNE 69 

heads, for which they formally gave him thanks. 
To make a general war was the conclusion of the 
tribes. Wayne then wrote to Knox : " Knowing 
the critical situation of our infant nation and feeling 
for the honor and reputation of the government 
which I shall support with my latest breath, you 
may rest assured that I will not commit the legion 
unnecessarily." 

By the 13 th of October he had marched to a 
point on a branch of the Miami river, eighty miles 
north of Cincinnati, where he found a camp which 
he fortified and called Greenville and there he re- 
mained through the winter. The march was so 
rapid and the order maintained so perfect, that the 
Indian scouts were baffled. From there he sent a 
corps with guides and spies six miles further along 
the trail of Harmar to secure "intelligence and 
scalps." He likewise detached a force to go to the 
field where St. Clair had been defeated, to bury the 
bones of the dead and erect a fort called Fort 
Recovery. 

In May a lieutenant with a convoy gallantly 
charged and repelled an assault. 

On the 30th of June about seventeen hundred 



70 ANTHONY WAYNE 

of the enemy made a desperate attempt to capture 
an escort under the walls of Fort Recovery and to 
carry the fort by storm, keeping up a heavy fire and 
making repeated efforts for two days, but were 
finally repulsed. Twenty-one soldiers were killed 
and twenty-nine wounded, and no doubt both sides 
were animated by the memories of the misfortunes 
of St. Clair at the same place. A few days later, 
after receiving some reenforcements of mounted 
men from Kentucky, he marched seventy miles into 
the heart of the Indian country, built Fort Defi- 
ance at the junction of the Le Glaize and Miami 
rivers, and then within sight of a British fort on 
the Miami made his preparations for the battle 
which was inevitable. He had marched nearly four 
hundred miles through the country of an enemy, 
both watchful and vindictive ; had cut a road through 
the woods the entire way, upon a route longer, more 
remote and more surrounded with dangers than that 
of Braddock ; had overcome the almost insuperable 
difficulties of securing supplies; had built three 
forts, and now had reached a position where the 
issue must be decided by arms. On the morning 
of August 2oth, 1794, the army advanced five 



ANTHONT WAYNE 71 

miles, with the river Miami on the right, a brigade 
of mounted volunteers on their left, a light brigade 
on their rear, and a selected battalion of horsemen 
in the lead. They came to a place where a tornado 
had swept through the forest, and thrown down the 
trees, since called the Fallen Timbers, and where 
the twisted trunks and limbs lay in such profusion 
as to impede the movements of the cavalry. Here 
the Indians, two thousand in number, encouraged 
by the proximity of the British fort, determined to 
make a stand. Hidden in the woods and the high 
grass, they opened fire upon the mounted men in 
the front and succeeded in driving them back to the 
main army. The enemy were formed in three 
lines in supporting distance of each other, extend- 
ing for about two miles at right angles to the river 
and were protected and covered by the woods. 
Wayne formed his force in two lines. He soon per- 
ceived from the firing and its direction that they 
were strong in numbers on his front and were en- 
deavoring to turn his left flank. He met this 
situation by ordering up the rear line to support 
the first, by sending a force by a circuitous route 
to turn the right of the enemy, by sending an- 



72 ANTHONY WAYNE 



other force at the same time along the river to 
turn their left, and by a direct charge with trailed 
arms in the front to drive the Indians from their 
covert with the bayonet, his favorite weapon. The 
Indians could not resist the onset, broke in confu- 
sion, and were driven two miles in the course of an 
hour through the woods with great loss. Their 
dead bodies and British muskets lay scattered in all 
directions. The next day Wayne rode forward and 
inspected the British fort. The major in command 
wanted to know " in what light am I to view your 
making such near approaches to this garrison?" to 
which Wayne replied that, had the occasion arisen, 
the fort would not have much impeded "the prog- 
ress of the victorious army." All of the villages, 
corn fields, and houses, including that of McKee, 
the British Indian agent, within a scope of one 
hundred miles, were burned and destroyed. 

American annals disclose no such other victory 
over the savage tribes. For the next quarter of a 
century there were peace and safety along the bor- 
der. It secured for civilization the territory between 
the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers. It made possi- 
ble the development of such states as Ohio, Illinois 



ANTHONY WAYNE 73 

and Indiana. When the information reached Lon- 
don the British Government, recognizing that the 
cause of the Indians was hopeless, ordered the 
evacuation of the posts at Detroit, Oswego and 
Niagara. Twenty years later there was written in 
praise of Perry's victory on Lake Erie that it was 
only second in importance to the West to that of 
Wayne at the Fallen Timbers. 

Two weeks later Wayne was crushed to the 
earth by a falling tree, so much bruised as to cause 
great pain and hemorrhages, and only the fortunate 
location of a stump, on which the tree partially 
lodged, saved his life. 

After the treaty of cession and peace had been 
executed, and after an absence in the wilderness for 
three years, he returned home in 1795, everywhere 
hailed with loud acclaim as the hero of the time 
and received in Philadelphia by the City Troop 
and with salvos from cannon, ringing of bells, and 
fireworks. 

His last battle had been fought. His work 
was done. " Both body and mind are fatigued by 
the contest," were his pathetic words. Soon after- 
ward the President sent him as commissioner to 



74 ANTHONY WAYNE 

Detroit and on his return he died at Presque Isle, 
now Erie, December the 15th, 1796. 

We have this description of his personal ap- 
pearance: "He was above what is termed the 
middle stature and well proportioned. His hair 
was dark. His forehead was high and handsomely 
formed. His eyes were dark hazel, intelligent, 
quick and penetrating. His nose inclined to be 
aquiline." 

His was a bold spirit. His six wounds indicate 
that he did not hesitate to expose his person when 
need arose, but he possessed beside that moral cour- 
age which enabled him to move with steady step 
when confronted with difficult and complicated 
propositions where the weak waver. Neither the 
fortifications at Stony Point nor the unknown wilds 
of Ohio made him uncertain. No man was potent 
enough either in military or civil affairs to give him 
affront with impunity. He was on the verge of a 
duel with Lee, with St. Clair, and with some 
others. He did not hesitate on occasion to say 
"damn." At the same time he was almost senti- 
mental in his affections. Attached to his wife, who 
was ever to him "Polly," or "my dear girl," he 



ANTHONY WAYNE 75 

wanted her to come to him in camp, and he never 
wrote to her without telling her to kiss for him his 
"little son and daughter." A negro boy waited 
upon the officers of the light infantry, and when 
the corps was dissolved they determined to sell him. 
"The little naked negro boy, Sandy," wrote Wayne, 
"so often ordered to be sold, is in my possession 
and newly clothed. I shall take care of him." 

He had healthy cravings. He was fond of 
porter and Madeira, of venison, cheese and sugar, 
of dress, of the approval of his fellow men, of the 
glory that follows successful military achievement. 
He drank tea as well as wine. He could be pru- 
dent and even diplomatic. Had he rushed upon 
the Pennsylvania Line when they were aroused and 
angry, he would have been killed. He opposed in 
1778 chasing after Clinton in Connecticut. Con- 
trary to the thought of Washington, he ordered a 
regiment to follow towards Stony Point for the pur- 
pose of having the men who were to make the 
charge strengthened by a sense of support. When 
the irritated Colonel Humpton claimed that Wayne's 
servant had taken his puppy and demanded its return 
Wayne presented his compliments, denied the facts, 



76 ANTHONY WAYNE 

declined to "dispute so trifling a matter," and sent 
the dog. He refused to lend his pistols to his 
friend, Major Fishbourne, who wanted to fight a 
duel. He had certain philosophical tendencies. 
" For law is like war — a trade to a common capac- 
ity, but a science to a man of abilities," he wrote 
to his son, and again, "let integrity, industry and 
probity be your constant guides." He did not be- 
lieve that the colonies could depend upon the aid 
of France, but contended that they must rest " on 
the firm ground of our own virtue and prowess." 
It was because of these tendencies that he was so 
particular about the discipline and dress of the 
soldiers, so insistent upon the provision for their 
needs, so reliant upon the moral effect of the cut- 
ting edge of a weapon, and so careful to cultivate 
the pride and esprit of the corps. He always 
wanted Pennsylvania troops to be with him in his 
campaigns, not that he intended to reflect upon 
those of other states, but because they and he had 
learned to trust each other and knew the value of 
the association. His willingness to encounter dan- 
ger and to take the risks of responsibility was by no 
means all due to the impulse of a military tempera- 



ANTHONY WAYNE 77 

ment. He saw, and more than once made his 
vision plain, that many and perhaps the most of 
those around him were subservient in thought and 
feeling. They had so long regarded the English as 
masters that when they met them as foes they had 
more respect for the enemy than confidence in 
themselves. He knew that the first step toward in- 
dependence must be an enlargement of soul. He 
called no Englishman a Hannibal, and when he met 
the pseudo Roman on the James, struck him with 
a spear, and after his capture invited him to dine. 
The supreme contribution of Wayne to the Ameri- 
can cause was that more than any other general he 
gave it inspiration. He proved that an English 
force could be assailed and compelled to surrender in 
a stronghold regarded as impregnable, and his con- 
duct affected for good the whole army. The most 
diffident were given courage by the example of 
Wayne. 

His letters, while lacking in literary skill and 
somewhat too roseate in their style, unlike much of 
the correspondence of the period, which is stilted, 
stiff and vague, always give vivid pictures and make 
entirely plain the thought he purposed to convey. 



78 ANTHONY WAYNE 

No one can read them intelligently without being 
impressed with the accuracy of their reasoning and 
the correctness of his judgment upon military prob- 
lems. He understood the conditions in Georgia 
better than Greene. He comprehended the situa- 
tion in Ohio more clearly than Knox. The orders 
of Washington, Schuyler, Lafayette and Greene 
show very plainly that when they were met by a 
difficult situation, requiring strenuous mental and 
physical effort, they were all disposed to call for 
the assistance of Wayne. Every general under 
whom he served sent him to the front. He had 
the advance at Germantown, and Monmouth, and 
on the James in Virginia. He was the first to 
enter Savannah and Charleston. No other general 
of the Revolution had so varied an experience. 
Greene came the nearest to him in this respect, but 
he neither fought so far north nor so far south. 
He was the only one of them who added to his 
reputation as a soldier after the close of the Revo- 
lution. The most dangerous event that can happen 
to a successful general is to be required to command 
under different conditions in a later war. History 
is strewn with the wrecks of reputations lost under 



ANTHONY WAYNE 79 

such circumstances. Wayne was subjected to this 
supreme test, and still he triumphed. He is the 
only general of the Revolutionary War in whose 
achievements the great West, rapidly becoming the 
source of power in our government, can claim to 
have participation. The final popular judgment 
upon all questions is sure to reach the truth. As 
time has rolled along most of the generals of the 
Revolution have become as vague as shadows, but 
Wayne remains instinct with life and the heart yet 
warms at the recital of his deeds. No common- 
wealth in America but has a county or town 
bearing his name. New York has made a state 
park of Stony Point, and ere long Ohio will do the 
like for the Fallen Timbers. One of the most 
inspiring of our lyrics written in the stress of the 
War of the Rebellion tells how "The bearded men 
are marching in the land of Anthony Wayne." 

By no chance, therefore, does it happen that 
his statue is set upon the centre of the outer line 
at Valley Forge. It is where he stood in the cold 
and the drear of that gloomy and memorable 
winter, and the place he held on many a field of 
battle. This hallowed camp-ground, where was 



8o ANTHONT WAYNE 

best shown that spirit of endurance and persistence 
which created a nation, shall tell, through the com- 
ing ages, to the future generations of men, the story 
of the bold soldier and consummate commander 
whose place seemed ever to be where the danger 
was the most threatening, and prudence and skill 
were the most essential. 



CONGRESS HALC 



"When your children ask their fathers in time to 
come, saying, what mean ye by these stones? Then ye 
shall answer them." — Joshua, Chap. IV, Verses 6 and 7. 

*^^ Les grands edifices y comme les grands montagneSy sont 
Fouvrage des siecles.'' — Notre Dame de Paris, by Victor 
Hugo. 

IT is proper and fitting that the Court of Com- 
mon Pleas No. 2, in finally departing from the 
building in which its sessions have for so long 
a time been held, should recall the remarkable as- 
sociations of the venerable structure. The events 
of human life are necessarily connected with local- 

* In the preparation of this address, delivered at the last session of 
the Court of Common Pleas No. 2, in Congress Hall, I have used freely 
Thompson Westcott's *' History of Philadelphia," as printed in the Sunday 
Dispatch; John Hill Martin's "Bench and Bar;" Frank M. Etting's 
"History of Independence Hall," F. D. Stone's edition ; Hon. James T. 
Mitchell's "Address Upon the District Court," and John William Wal- 
lace's "Address Upon the Inauguration of the New Hall of the Historical 
Society." 

I have been materially aided by Mr. Andrew J. Reilly, Mr. Luther E. 
Hewitt, Mr. John W. Jordan, Mr. Julius F. Sachse and Mr. F. D. Stone. 



82 CONGRESS HALL 

ities. The career of a man is somewhat influenced 
by the house in which he was born and the place 
he calls home, and in the growth and development 
of nations, such buildings as the Parthenon, the 
Pyramids, St. Peter's, the Prinzen Hof at Delft, 
Westminster Abbey, and Independence Hall, about 
which important memories cluster, become an in- 
spiration for present action and an incentive for 
future endeavor. When we search with due dili- 
gence we find good in everything and sermons in 
stones and bricks. 

The idea of the erection of a hall for the use 
of the county originated with the celebrated law- 
yer, Andrew Hamilton, to whose efforts we owe 
also the State House. He, as early as 1736, secured 
the passage of a resolution by the Assembly of 
Pennsylvania looking to the accomplishment of this 
purpose. The Act of February 17, 1762, provided 
for a conveyance to the county of a lot at the 
southeast corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets, con- 
taining in front on Chestnut street fifty feet, and in 
depth along Sixth street seventy-three feet, on which 
should be erected within twenty years a building to 
be used "for the holding of courts" and as a "com- 



CONGRESS HALL 83 

mon hall." The project progressed slowly, and 
when it was finally carried forward to completion, 
two different funds were used for the purpose. The 
first of them had a curious origin. It was a time- 
honored custom among the early mayors of the city 
to celebrate their escape from the labors and respon- 
sibilities of their ofhce by giving a public banquet, 
to which their constituents were generally invited. 
In 1 74 1, James Hamilton, a son of Andrew Hamil- 
ton, and mayor at the time, considering it a custom 
more honored in the breach than in the observance, 
gave, in lieu of the entertainment, the sum of one 
hundred and fifty pounds, to be used in the erection 
of an exchange or other building for public pur- 
poses, and subsequent mayors followed his example. 
If our late mayor, when he vacated his office in 
March last, sent no prandial communication to you, 
these early qualms of conscience may explain the 
omission. The other fund was raised in 1785, by 
the sale of "the old gaol and work-house." On 
the 29th of March, 1787, fifteen feet were added 
to the depth of the lot by an Act of the Assembly ; 
soon afterward work was commenced upon the 
cellar by gangs of convicts called "wheelbarrow- 



84 CONGRESS HALL 

men,"* and the building was completed in the early 
part of 1789, just in time to insure its future fame 
and importance. On the 4th of March of that 
year, the Assembly, acting by authority of the rep- 
resentatives of the city and county of Philadelphia, 
tendered to Congress, for the temporary residence 
of the Federal Government, the use of the building 
" lately erected on the State House Square." In 
the year 1790, Congress, after a long and somewhat 
embittered struggle, finally determined to fix the 
location of the capital on the banks of the Poto- 
mac, and Philadelphia, mainly through the efforts 
of Robert Morris, and much to the dissatisfaction 
of the people of New York, was selected as the 
seat of government for the intervening period of 
ten years. On the 6th of December, 1790, the 
first Congress, at its third session, met in this build- 
ing, the House of Representatives on the floor 
below us, and the Senate in this room. 

In the Columbian Magazine for January, 1790, 
is a copper-plate representation of the building as it 
was when completed, taken from the southwest. 
This view shows five windows in each story of the 

^ Historical Magazine, Vol. X, p. 105. 



CONGRESS HALL 85 

west wall, two chimneys on the west, a cupola on 
top, a brick wall enclosing the square on Sixth 
street, and the rear of the building pretty much as 
it is at present. The text describes it as "a large 
new building, finished in a neat and elegant style," 
and the square as "a beautiful lawn, interspersed 
with little knobs or tufts of flowering shrubs and 
clumps of trees well disposed. Through the middle 
of the gardens runs a spacious gravel walk, lined 
with double rows of thriving elms and communi- 
cating with serpentine walks which encompass the 
whole area. These surrounding walks are not uni- 
formly on a level with the lawn, the margin of 
which being in some parts a little higher forms 
a bank which, in fine weather, affords pleasant 
seats." 

From the books of foreign travellers and 
others we get a pretty good description of the in- 
ternal arrangement and appearance of the building. 
Isaac Weld, an Englishman, says: 

"The room allotted to the representatives of 
the lower House is about sixty feet in length and 
fitted up in the plainest manner. At one end of it 
is a gallery, open to every person that chooses to 



86 CONGRESS HALL 

enter it; the staircase leading to which runs directly 
from the public street. The Senate chamber is in 
the story above this, and it is furnished and fitted 
up in a much superior style to that of the lower 
House." 

The eagle with its thunderbolts, and the centre- 
piece of grapevine with thirteen stars, still seen in 
the ceiling, marred by the useless and unornamental 
glass knobs, scattered over it only a few years ago, 
is a remnant of that "superior style" in which the 
Senate chamber was then fitted up. The gallery in 
the lower room had accommodations for three hun- 
dred persons. In this room stood a large pyramidal 
stove. A broad aisle ran through the centre. 

We are told by a contemporary: "The House 
of Representatives in session occupied the whole of 
the ground floor, upon a platform elevated three 
steps in ascent, plainly carpeted, and covering nearly 
the whole of the area, with a limited loggia or pro- 
menade for the members and privileged persons, and 
four narrow desks between the Sixth street windows 
for the stenographers, Lloyd, Gales, Callender and 
Duane. The Speaker's chair, without canopy, was 
of plain leather and brass nails, facing the east, at or 



CONGRESS HALL 87 

near the centre of the western wall. The first Speaker 
of the House in this city was Frederick Augustus 
Muhlenberg, who, by his portly person and hand- 
some rotundity, literally filled the chair. His rubi- 
cund complexion and oval face, hair full powdered, 
tamboured satin vest of ample dimensions, dark blue 
coat with gilt buttons, and a sonorous voice, exercised 
by him without effort in putting the question, all 
corresponding in appearance and sound with his 
magnificent name, and accompanied as it was by that 
of George Washington, President, as signatures to 
the laws of the Union ; all these had an imposing 
effect upon the inexperienced auditory in the gallery, 
to whom all was new and very strange. He was 
succeeded here by Jonathan Dayton, of New Jersey, 
a very tall, rawboned figure of a gentleman, with 
terrific aspect, and, when excited, a voice of thunder. 
His slender, bony figure filled only the centre of the 
chair, resting on the arms of it with his hands and 
not the elbows. From the silence which prevailed, 
of course, on coming to order after prayers by Bishop 
White, an occasional whisper, increasing to a buzz, 
after the manner of boys in school, in the seats in 
the lobby and around the fires, swelling at last to 



CONGRESS HALL 



loud conversation wholly inimical to debate. Very 
frequently at this stage of confusion among the bab- 
bling politicians, Mr. Speaker Dayton would start 
suddenly upon his feet, look fiercely around the hall, 
and utter the words, order, order , without the bar, in 
such appalling tones of voice that as though a can- 
non had been fired under the windows in the street, 
the deepest silence in one moment prevailed, but for 
a very short time." 

The voice of Muhlenberg seems to have im- 
pressed his contemporaries. In " He would be a 
Poet," a satire upon John Swanwick, published in 
Philadelphia in 1796, occur these lines: 

" I'll tell them all how great Augustus spoke ; 
With what an awful voice he called to order 
Whene'er the gallery did on tumult border." 

In the " House of Wisdom in a Bustle," a satire 
published in 1798, we find the following: 

" The clock had just struck ; the doors were extended ; 

The priest to his pulpit had gravely ascended. 

Devoutly he prayed, for devoutly he should 

Solicit for wicked as well as for good. 

He prayed for the Gentile, for Turk, and for Jew, 



CONGRESS HALL 89 

And hoped they'd shun folly and wisdom pursue, 

For all absent members — as some have a notion 

To dispense with this formal and pious devotion. 

This duty performed, without hesitation, 

He left to their wisdom the charge of the nation. 

When the parson retired, some members sat musing, 

Whilst others were letters and papers perusing. 

Some apples were munching; some laughing and joking: 

Some snuffing, some chewing, but none were a-smoking; 

Some warming their faces." 

This picture, indicating a lack of decorum in 
the House, is, perhaps, not overdrawn, since we are 
informed by another writer that a few of the mem- 
bers "persisted in wearing, while in their seats and 
during the debate, their ample cocked hats, placed 
fore and aft upon their heads, with here and there a 
leg thrown across the little desk before them." 

A happy chance has preserved this further 
piece of contemporaneous color: "At the eastern- 
most part of Congress Hall is a bench, on which 
stands a pitcher of water to cool the throats of the 
thirsty members."* 

Henry Wansey, an Englishman, who was here 
in 1794, says: "Behind it is a garden which is open 

* Note to "House of Wisdom in a Bustle." 



90 CONGRESS HALL 

for company to walk in. It was planned and laid 
out by Samuel Vaughan, Esq., a merchant of 
London, who went a few years ago, and resided 
sometime in Philadelphia. It is particularly con- 
venient to the House of Representatives, which, 
being on the ground floor, has two doors that open 
directly into it, to which they can retire to compose 
their thoughts or refresh themselves after any fatigue 
of business, or confer together and converse without 
interrupting the debate." 

John Swanwick, himself a noted member of 
Congress from Philadelphia, as well as a poet of 
reputation at the time, in some verses "On a Walk 
in the State House Yard, June 30, 1787,"* which 
he seems to have made with his Delia, "to see her 
smile and hear her gentle talk," describes it as a 
place where the young people of that day did their 
courting. He pays a warm tribute to the man who 

"planned this soft retreat 
And decked with trees and grassy sod the plain," 

in lines which predict 

* "Swanwick's Poems," p. 94. 



CONGRESS HALL 91 

" Oh! how much more shall he be crowned by fame 
Who formed for lovers this auspicious grove;" 

and while he does not forget that 

"Even now the sages whom the land convenes 
To fix her empire and prescribe her laws, 
While pensive wandering through these rural scenes, 
May frame their counsels for a world's applause," 

he nevertheless thinks it more suited for enraptured 
swains who twine sportive garlands and reveal their 
wishes and fears. 

Brissot de Warville came to Philadelphia in 
1788. He was much impressed by our Quaker 
people, and was on terms of close and intimate 
friendship with many of them, including Miers 
Fisher, the noted lawyer. His head, filled with 
decided opinions concerning philanthropy and the 
rights of mankind, was cut off by the guillotine in 
the early days of the French Revolution. He de- 
scribes what we call the square in this way : " Be- 
hind the State House is a public garden. It is the 
only one which exists in Philadelphia. It is not 
large, but it is agreeable. One can breathe there. 
There are large squares of green divided by walks." 



92 CONGRESS HALL 

Judge Mitchell, in his interesting address upon 
the District Court, delivered twenty years ago, says: 
"There was no entrance on Sixth street, no partition 
between the present Quarter Sessions room and the 
room of the Highway Department, and no stairs at 
that point leading to the second story. The entrance 
was on Chestnut street into a vestibule, thence into 
a sort of second vestibule or foyer for spectators, and 
then a large room, occupied during the time the 
Congress sat here after its completion by the House 
of Representatives. The staircase to the second 
story was in the vestibule next to Chestnut street, 
and led up to a similar vestibule, from which ran a 
broad entry southward to the Senate Chamber, 
which was the present District Court room No. i. 
The space now occupied by the District Court room 
No. 2, and the witness rooms, lately the Law Li- 
brary, was divided into four committee rooms, two 
on each side of the broad entry I have mentioned. 
On the north side of the Senate Chamber was a 
gallery, attainable only by a steep spiral staircase 
leading up from what has since been the east or 
conversation room of the Law Library. This gal- 
lery was not a part of the original plan of the 



CONGRESS HALL 93 

building, and was put there after the room was ac- 
cepted by the Senate. It was very close to the 
ceiling, narrow, dark and uncomfortable. After the 
room came to be used by the courts the gallery was 
commonly kept closed, as I learn from Judge Coxe, 
because it became a place of resort for the hangers- 
on, who frequently went to sleep and snored, to the 
great disturbance of the proceedings. It was finally 
removed in i 835." 

The late John McAllister used to tell that 
once, in his boyhood days, he and another urchin 
found their way into this gallery and sat down to 
watch the proceedings of the Senate. He and his 
friend were the only spectators. Presently Thomas 
Jefferson arose and announced: "The Senate is 
about to go into executive session. The gentlemen 
in the gallery will please withdraw." Whereupon 
the two boys took their hats and departed, often 
afterwards saying, that at least they could claim to 
be gentlemen upon the authority of Jefferson. 
Those certainly were days of simplicity, when the 
only listeners that the debates of the Senate of 
the United States could attract were two errant 
urchins over whose heads time hung heavily. 



94 CONGRESS HALL 

The same contemporary authority we have be- 
fore cited describes the Senate in this way : " In a 
very plain chair, without canopy, and a small ma- 
hogany table before him, festooned at the sides and 
front with green silk, Mr. Adams, the vice-presi- 
dent, presided as president of the Senate, facing the 
north. Among the thirty senators of that day 
there was observed constantly during the debate the 
most delightful silence, the most beautiful order, 
gravity and dignity of manner. They all appeared 
every morning full powdered and dressed as age or 
fancy might suggest in the richest material. The 
very atmosphere of the place seemed to inspire wis- 
dom, mildness and condescension. Should any one 
of them so far forget for a moment as to be the 
cause of a protracted whisper while another was 
addressing the vice-president, three gentle taps with 
his silver pencil case upon the table by Mr. Adams 
immediately restored everything to repose and the 
most respectful attention." 

If we were to suppose, however, that in that 
early period of the history of the republic the poli- 
ticians and statesmen treated each other with gentle 
and kindly courtesy, awarded to their opponents 



CONGRESS HALL ss 

due measure of credit, and fought out their contro- 
versies without heat and wrath, we should be very 
much mistaken. No unprejudiced person can care- 
fully compare the records they have left to us with 
those of the present without perceiving that in the 
course of the century which has elapsed there has 
been a decided advance both in morals and in man- 
ners, and it strengthens our faith in the stability of 
the government to believe, as we properly may, that 
future generations will look back with as great pride 
and satisfaction upon the labors of the earnest and 
worthy men of to-day as do we upon those of the 
members of the earliest Congress, admirable as was 
much of their work and great as was their merit. 
William Maclay, United States Senator from Penn- 
sylvania in the first Congress, kept a journal of the 
proceedings of the Senate while he sat with the other 
Senators in this room. Upon one occasion General 
Dickinson came and whispered to him: "This day 
the treasury will make another purchase, for Hamil- 
ton (Alexander) has drawn fifteen thousand dollars 
from the bank in order to buy." Maclay compla- 
cently adds: "What a damnable villain!" At an- 
other time he gave expression to this devout wish: 



96 CONGRESS HALL 

" Would to God this same General Washington 
were in Heaven." 

Giles, the new member from Virginia, is pre- 
served after this fashion: "The frothy manners of 
Virginia were ever uppermost. Canvas-back ducks, 
ham and chickens, old Madeira, the glories of the 
Ancient Dominion, all fine, were his constant 
themes. Boasted of personal prowess; more man- 
ual exercise than any man in New England; fast 
but fine living in his country, wine or cherry bounce 
from twelve o'clock to night every day. He seemed 
to practise on this principle, too, as often as the 
bottle passed him." 

In 1798 two of the members of the House, 
both of them from New England, Matthew Lyon, 
of Vermont, and Roger Griswold, of Connecticut, 
had a series of rencontres, which caused much com- 
motion and comment, and became the subject of 
squibs and caricatures, and of at least two satires in 
verse, "The Legislative Pugilists" and "The House 
of Wisdom in a Bustle." On the 2 2d of January, 
while the House was voting for members upon the 
committee to prosecute the impeachment of Senator 
Blount, some allusion was made by Griswold to a 



CONGRESS HALL 97 

story that Lyon, during the Revolutionary War, had 
been compelled to wear a wooden sword because of 
cowardice in the field. Lyon made answer by spit- 
ting in his face. A motion was made to expel 
Griswold, a committee was appointed to investigate, 
the committee reported a resolution in favor of the 
expulsion of Lyon, and the House negatived the res- 
olution. On the 15th of February, while Lyon was 
writing at his desk, Griswold came up and hit him 
over the head and shoulders with a club. Lyon man- 
aged to get hold of the tongs in use about the stove, 
and, defending himself, they beat each other until 
separated. Some time afterward they met in an 
ante-room, and Lyon struck Griswold with a stick. 
Sitgreaves ran, and having found a hickory club, 
gave it to Griswold, but they were again separated. 
While the matter led to much discussion, no defi- 
nite action was taken by the House. 

In The Key, a magazine published for the 
brief period of a year at Fredericksburg, Mary- 
land, in 1798, appeared the following "Battle of 
the Wooden Sword." So far as known, only one 
copy of the magazine has been preserved. 



98 



CONGRESS HALL 



THE BATTLE OF THE WOODEN SWORD! OR, THE 
MODERN PUGILISTS. 



A NEW SONG IN TWO PARTS. 

*' An hundred men with each a pen. 
Or more, upon my word, sir. 
It is most true, would be too few. 
Their valour to record, sir." 



FIRST PART. 

Tune — Yankee Doodle. 

In any age, or any page 

Of fam'd old mother Clio, 

We cannot say, so vile a fray 
Rais'd such a hue and cry, O. 

Chorus. 

Sing Yankee doodle, bow, wow, 

wow, 

Yankee doodle dandy. 

Let us record the wooden sword. 

And with the glass be handy. 

We all must blush, and cry out 
hush ! 
At what has pass'd so recent. 
Within the wall of Congress Hall, 
O la! 'twas too indecent. 

Sing Yankee doodle. Sec. 

But still to sing a funny thing. 
At night when we are quaffing. 

Which to record the wooden sword, 
I'm sure will keep us laughing. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 



Therefore draw near, and you shall 
hear 
A tale fit for derision. 
That I do ken 'bout Congress men. 
And claim' d mature decision. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

But to proceed with quickest speed 
And not prolong my ditty. 

If I can tell my story well 
You'll laugh, or it's a pity. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

Some Congress folks must pass their 
jokes 
Upon one Matthew Lyon, 
Insulting Pat, the democrat. 

Whilst some look'd snigg'ring 
sly on. 

Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

The speaker then, and Congress 
men. 
Were standing out of place, sir. 
When Lyon spit, a little bit. 
In Roger Griswold's face, sir. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 



CONGRESS HALL 



99 



It was, they say, a silly fray, 

Caus'd by some silly word, sir, 
That chanc'd to slip from Gris- 
wold's lip. 
About a wooden sword, sir. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

At which he roar'd and damn'd the 
sword. 
And did not storm a little. 
His feelings hurt, which made him 
squirt 
In Roger's face his spittle. 

Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

Like with a blast, they stood aghast. 
The men of this great forum. 

Who loud did prate, and execrate 
This breach of their decorum. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

Some rose to blame, O fy, for 

shame, 
Cry'd out each one and all, sir. 
From north to south, in ev'ry 
mouth, 
'Twas heard round Congress Hall, 
sir. 

Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

Now round the world, I'm sure 'tis 
hurl'd. 
How Griswold spoke provoking. 
In frantic fit, how Lyon spit. 
And sad has prov'd their joking. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 



Some members rose, for fear that 
blows 
Would speedy follow after. 
Some seem'd confus'd, some rail'd, 
abus'd. 
And some burst out in laugh- 
ter. 

Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

Yet some confess' d, that in arrest. 
And that without denial, 

Lyon be plac'd, and be disgrac'd. 
At least to stand a trial. 

Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

In torrents pour, in ev'ry door. 
The folks of every station. 

Wide staring all, to see a brawl 
'Midst rulers of a Nation. 

Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

Indeed the case had brought dis- 
grace 
On any in this City : 
As soon 'twas heard, the house re- 
ferr'd 
Itself in a Committee. 

Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

While some were mute, some in 
dispute, 
And all in sad convulsion. 
Some said in fact, so vile an act 
Deserv'd direct expulsion. 

Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 



lOO 



CONGRESS HALL 



One member said, I'm not afraid 
To speak in fire and thunder ! 
While men & boys, who heard the 
noise. 
Stood gapmg, mute with wonder. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

Now Lyon thought that he had 
brought 
His pigs to a bad market. 
The wooden sword he heard en- 
cor'd 
And ev'ry dog would bark it. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

So he began a long harangue. 

How much he had been wear'ed. 
Which made at least, him act the 
beast. 
Because he'd been cashier' d. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

He then cried out, at length no 
doubt. 
If I should be compliant. 
The time will come, they'll kick 
my b — m. 
Yet still, I'm to be silent. 

Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

What's that was said, cries one 
quite red. 
With blushes much confounded. 
Another breach, by filthy speech; 
His rudeness is unbounded. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 



Then much did they his vice pour- 
tray. 
By many days* debating. 
And strange to tell, did not expel 
The man we are narrating. 

Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

This cost U. S., if right I guess. 
Twelve thousand dollars rhino. 
Which, bye the bye, will make us 
sigh, 
Instead of laughing, I know. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

Yet, lest I'm long, let's end this 
song. 
And none his laughter smother, 
I've sung one truth, and now for- 
sooth, 
I'll briefly sing another. 

Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

SECOND PART. 

Against his will, when Roger still 
Saw Matthew was not outed. 

And from his seat did not retreat. 
He swore he should be routed. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

So next he went, with bad intent. 
And enter' d Congress Hall in; 
He took his cane to crack the 
brain. 
And lay old Matthew sprawling. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 



CONGRESS HALL 



lOI 



So in a trice, he struck him thrice. 

Most soundly on the head, sir. 
And beat him fore, all o'er and 
o'er. 
Till Lyon sadly bled, sir. 

Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

He seized the tongs, to ease his 
wrongs. 
And Griswold then assail'd. 
By heinous drubs, from heinous 
clubs. 
Disorder now prevailed. 

Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

Some members mad, some very glad. 

Some still as any mouse, sir. 
Some rais'd a roar, shew them the 
door. 
Or they'll pollute the house, sir. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 



If there's no rule, we'll keep men 
cool. 
Whilst in this house we're sitting. 
With broken heads, we'll keep our 
beds. 
And scandal crown the meeting. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

Now both assuage their cruel rage, 
Possess'd of melancholy. 

And to accede, they both agreed 
No more to shew their folly. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 

Thus ends the song, tho' very 
long. 
About the Wooden Sword, sir. 
When next in spite, they spit and 
fight. 
The deed we will record, sir. 
Sing Yankee doodle, &c. 



Perhaps the most interesting event in the 
history of the building was the inauguration of 
Washington as President of the United States on 
the 4th of March, 1793. The oath of office was 
administered to him by Judge Gushing in the room 
in which we are now sitting. Stansbury, in his 
"Recollections and Anecdotes of the Presidents of 
the United States," has given this description of the 
scene: "I was but a school boy at the time, and 



I02 CONGRESS HALL 

had followed one of the many groups of people 
who, from all quarters, were making their way to 
the hall in Chestnut Street at the corner of Sixth, 
where the two houses of Congress then held their 
sittings, and where they were that day to be ad- 
dressed by the President on the opening of his 
second term of office. Boys can often manage to 
work their way through a crowd better than men 
can. At all events, it so happened that I succeeded 
in reaching the steps of the hall, from which eleva- 
tion, looking in every direction, I could see nothing 
but human heads — a vast fluctuating sea, swaying 
to and fro, and filling every accessible place which 
commanded even a distant view of the building. 
They had congregated, not with the hope of get- 
ting into the hall, for that was physically impossible, 
but that they might see Washington. Many an 
anxious look was cast in the direction from which 
he was expected to come, till at length, true to the 
appointed hour (he was the most punctual of men), 
an agitation was observable on the outskirts of the 
crowd, which gradually opened and gave space for 
the approach of an elegant white coach, drawn by 
six superb white horses, having on its four sides 



CONGRESS HALL 103 

beautiful designs of the four seasons, painted by 
Cipriani. It slowly made its way till it drew up 
immediately in front of the hall. The rush was 
now tremendous. But as the coach door opened 
there issued from it two gentlemen with long white 
wands, who, with some difficulty, parted the people 
so as to open a passage from the carriage to the 
steps on which the fortunate school boy had 
achieved a footing, and whence the whole pro- 
ceeding could be distinctly seen. As the person 
of the President emerged from the carriage a uni- 
versal shout rent the air, and continued as he delib- 
erately ascended the steps. On reaching the plat- 
form he paused, looking back on the carriage, thus 
affording to the anxiety of the people the indul- 
gence they desired of feasting their eyes upon his 
person. Never did a more majestic personage pre- 
sent himself to the public gaze. As the President 
entered all arose and remained standing until he 
had ascended the steps at the upper end of the 
chamber and taken his seat in the speaker's chair. 
It was an impressive moment. Notwithstanding 
that the spacious apartment, floor, lobby, galleries 
and all approaches were crowded to their utmost 



I04 CONGRESS HALL 

capacity, not a sound was heard. The silence of 
expectation was unbroken and profound. Every 
breath was suspended. He was dressed in a full 
suit of the richest black velvet; his lower limbs in 
short clothes and diamond knee buckles and black 
silk stockings. His shoes, which were brightly 
japanned, were surmounted with large square silver 
buckles. His hair, carefully displayed in the man- 
ner of the day, was richly powdered and gathered 
behind into a black silk bag, on which was a bow 
of black ribbon. In his hand he carried a plain 
cocked hat, decorated with the American cockade. 
He wore by his side a light, slender dress sword, in 
a green shagreen scabbard, with a richly ornamented 
hilt. His gait was deliberate, his manner solemn but 
self-possessed, and he presented altogether the most 
august human figure I had then or have since beheld. 
"At the head of the Senate stood Thomas 
Jefferson in a blue coat — single breasted, with 
large, bright basket buttons — his vest and small 
clothes of crimson. I remember being struck by 
his animated countenance of a brick-red hue, his 
bright eye and foxy hair, as well as by his tall, 
gaunt, ungainly form and square shoulders. A per- 



CONGRESS HALL 105 

feet contrast was presented by the pale, reflective 
face and delicate figure of James Madison, and, 
above all, by the short, burly, bustling form of 
General Knox, with ruddy cheek, prominent eye, 
and still more prominent proportions of another 
kind. In the semi-circle which was formed behind 
the chair, and on either hand of the President, my 
boyish gaze was attracted by the splendid attire of 
the Chevalier D'Yrujo, the Spanish embassador, 
then the only foreign minister near our infant 
government. His glittering star, his silk chapeau 
bras, edged with ostrich feathers, his foreign air and 
courtly bearing, contrasted strangely with those 
nobility of nature's forming who stood around him. 
It was a very fair representation of the old world 
and the new. Having retained his seat for a few 
moments, while the members resumed their seats, 
the President rose and, taking from his breast a roll 
of manuscript, proceeded to read his address. His 
voice was full and sonorous, deep and rich in its 
tones, free from that trumpet ring which it could 
assume amid the tumult of battle (and which is 
said to have been distinctly heard above its roar), 
but sufficiently loud and clear to fill the chamber 



io6 CONGRESS HALL 

and be heard with perfect ease in its most remote 
recesses. He read, as he did everything else, with 
a singular serenity and composure, with manly ease 
and dignity, but without the smallest attempt at 
display. Having concluded, he laid the manuscript 
upon the table before him, and resumed his seat, 
when, after a slight pause, he rose and withdrew, 
the members rising and remaining on their feet 
until he left the chamber." 

This graphic and somewhat highly wrought 
narrative is certainly entertaining and interesting, 
but there are some features about it which suggest 
the query as to whether or not it is entirely trust- 
worthy. 

The celebrated William Cobbett, one of the 
great masters of the English language and later a 
member of Parliament, was present upon all but 
five days of the session of 1795-6. "Most of the 
members will without doubt," he says, "recollect 
seeing a little dark man, clad in a grey coat some- 
thing the worse for wear, sitting in the west corner 
of the front seat. That has been my post." On 
the 8th of December, 1795, Washington came 
before the Senate and House assembled in the hall 



CONGRESS HALL 107 

of the House, to present his message concerning 
Jay's treaty with England, He found Congress 
in a state of "composed gravity" and "respectful 
silence," and the gallery "crowded with anxious 
spectators." Cobbett then proceeds: 

" The President is a timid speaker. He is a 
proof among thousands that superior genius, wis- 
dom and courage are ever accompanied with excess- 
ive modesty. His situation was at this time almost 
entirely new. Never till a few months preceding 
this session had the tongue of the most factious slan- 
der dared to make a public attack on his character. 
This was the first time he had ever entered the 
walls of Congress without a full assurance of meet- 
ing a welcome from every heart. He now saw 
even among those to whom he addressed himself 
numbers who to repay all his labors, all his anxious 
cares for their welfare, were ready to thwart his 
measures and present him the cup of humiliation 
filled to the brim. When he came to that part of 
his speech where he mentions the treaty with his 
Britannic majesty he cast his eyes toward the gal- 
lery. It was not the look of indignation and 
reproach, but of injured virtue which is ever ready 



io8 CONGRESS HALL 

to forgive. I was pleased to observe that not a 
single murmur of disapprobation was heard from 
the spectators that surrounded me; and if there 
were some amongst them who had assisted at 
the turbulent town meetings I am persuaded that 
they were sincerely penitent. When he departed 
every look seemed to say: God prolong his pre- 
cious life." 

John Adams, the second President of the 
United States, was inaugurated here on the 4th of 
March, 1797. As Adams and Jefferson entered, 
they were each applauded by their respective party 
followers. Adams took his seat in the chair of the 
speaker; Jefferson, Washington, and the secretary of 
the Senate were upon his left hand, and the Chief 
Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court 
of the United States at a table in the centre. Gen- 
eral James Wilkinson, commander-in-chief of the 
army, all of the officers of State and foreign min- 
isters were present. Adams made a short speech, 
and then, going down to the table at which the 
judges were sitting, took the oath of office adminis- 
tered to him by the Chief Justice, Oliver Ellsworth. 
After his withdrawal, Jefferson was sworn into 



CONGRESS HALL 109 

office as Vice-President. John McKoy, who was 
present, wrote a description of the scene for Poul- 
son's Daily Advertiser. He says: "The first nov- 
elty that presented itself was the entrance of the 
Spanish minister, the Marquis Yrujo, in full diplo- 
matic costume. He was of middle size, of round 
person, florid complexion, and hair powdered like 
a snowball ; dark striped silk coat, lined with satin ; 
white waistcoat, black silk breeches, white silk 
stockings, shoes and buckles. He had by his side 
an elegant hiked small sword, and his chapeau, 
tipped with white feathers, under his arm. Thus 
decorated, he crossed the floor of the hall with the 
most easy nonchalance possible and an occasional 
side toss of the head (to him habitual) to his ap- 
pointed place. He was viewed by the audience for 
a short time in curious silence. He had scarcely 
adjusted himself to his chair, when the attention of 
the audience was roused by the word * Washington,' 
near the door of the entrance. The word flew 
like lightning through the assembly, and the sub- 
sequent varied shouts of enthusiasm produced im- 
mediately such a sound as 

*When loud surges lash the sounding shore.* 



no CONGRESS HALL 

It was an unexpected and instantaneous expression of 
simultaneous feeling which made the hall tremble. 
Occasionally the word * Washington,' * Washington,' 
might be heard like the guns in a storm. He en- 
tered in the midst and crossed the floor at a quick 
step, as if eager to escape notice, and seated himself 
quickly on his chair, near the Marquis Yrujo, who 
rose up at his entrance as if startled by the uncom- 
mon scene. He was dressed similar to all the full- 
length portraits of him — hair full powdered, with 
black silk rose and bag pendant behind as then was 
usual for elderly gentlemen of the old school. But 
on those portraits one who had never seen Wash- 
ington might look in vain for that benign expression 
of countenance possessed by him and only suffi- 
ciently perceptible in the lithographic bust of Rem- 
brandt Peale, to cause a feeling, as Judge Peters, in 
his certificate to the painter, expresses it. The burst 
at the entrance had not subsided, when the word 
*Jefl^erson,' at the entrance door, again electrified 
the audience into another explosion of feeling sim- 
ilar to the first, but abated in force and energy. 
He entered, dressed in a long, blue frock coat, 
single breasted, and buttoned down to the waist ; 



CONGRESS HALL iii 

light sandy hair, very slightly powdered and cued 
with black ribbon a long way down his back; tall, 
of benign aspect and straight as an arrow, he bent 
not, but with an erect gait moved leisurely to his 
seat near Washington and sat down. Silence again 
ensued. Presently an increased bustle near the door of 
the entrance, and the words * President,' * President 
Adams,' again produced an explosion of feeling sim- 
ilar to those that had preceded, but again diminished 
by repetition in its force and energy. He was 
dressed in a suit of light drab cloth, his hair well 
powdered, with rose and bag like those of Wash- 
ington. He passed slowly on, bowing on each side, 
till he reached the speaker's chair, on which he sat 
down. Again a deep silence prevailed, in the midst 
of which he rose, and bowing round to the audience 
three times, varying his position each time, he then 
read his inaugural address, in the course of which 
he alluded to, and at the same time bowed to, his 
predecessor, which was returned from Washington, 
who, with the members of Congress, were all 
standing. When he had finished, he sat down. 
After a short pause, he rose up and, bowing round 
as before, he descended from the chair and passed 



112 CONGRESS HALL 

out with acclamation. Washington and Jefferson 
remained standing together, and the bulk of the 
audience watching their movements in cautious 
silence. Presently, with a graceful motion of the 
hand, Washington invited the Vice-President, Jef- 
ferson, to pass on before him, which was declined 
by Mr. Jefferson. After a pause, an invitation to 
proceed was repeated by Washington, when the 
Vice-President passed on towards the door and 
Washington after him." 

Among the spectators of this interesting scene 
was Rembrandt Peale, the artist, who had a seat in 
the gallery. Mrs. Susan R. Echard, who in 1859 
was still living in Philadelphia at the age of eighty- 
three years, and who was present, wrote a contem- 
porary letter to a kinsman in which she said: 
" When General Washington delivered his Farewell 
Address, in the room at the southeast corner of 
Chestnut and Sixth streets, I sat immediately in 
front of him. It was in the room Congress occu- 
pied. The table of the speaker was between the 
two windows on Sixth street. The daughter of Dr. 
C. (Craik), of Alexandria, the physician and inti- 
mate friend of Washington, Mrs. H. (Harrison), 



CONGRESS HALL 113 

whose husband was the auditor, was a very dear 
friend of mine. Her brother Washington was one 
of the secretaries of General Washington. Young 
Dandridge, a nephew of Mrs. Washington, was the 
other. I was included in Mrs. H.'s party to wit- 
ness the august, the solemn scene. Mr. H. declined 
going with Mrs. H., as she had determined to go 
early, so as to secure the front bench. It was 
fortunate for Miss C. (Custis), afterward Mrs. L. 
(Lewis), that she could not trust herself to be so 
near her honored grandfather. My dear father 
stood very near her. She was terribly agitated. 
There was a narrow passage from the door of en- 
trance to the room, which was on the east, dividing 
the rows of benches. General Washington stopped 
at the end to let Mr. Adams pass to the chair. The 
latter always wore a full suit of bright drab, with 
lash or loose cuffs to his coat. He always wore 
wrist ruffles. He had not changed his fashions. 
He was a short man, with a good head. With his 
family he attended our church twice a day. Gen- 
eral Washington's dress was a full suit of black. 
His military hat had the black cockade. There 



114 CONGRESS HALL 

stood the * Father of his Country,* acknowledged 
by nations the first in war, the first in peace, and 
the first in the hearts of his countrymen. No mar- 
shals with gold-colored scarfs attended him; there 
was no cheering, no noise; the most profound 
silence greeted him, as if the great assembly desired 
to hear him breathe, and catch his breath in hom- 
age of their hearts. Mr. Adams covered his face 
with both his hands; the sleeves of his coat, and 
his hands were covered with tears. Every now and 
then there was a suppressed sob. I cannot describe 
Washington's appearance as I felt it — perfectly 
composed and self-possessed till the close of his 
address — then, when strong nervous sobs broke 
loose, when tears covered the faces, then the great 
man was shaken. I never took my eyes from his 
face. Large drops came from his eyes. He looked 
to the youthful children who were parting with 
their father, their friend, as if his heart was with 
them, and would be to the end."* 

While Congress held its sessions in this build- 
ing, the United States Mint and the United States 
Bank were established; Vermont, Kentucky and 

* G. W. P. Custis's ** Recollections of Washington," p. 434. 



CONGRESS HALL 115 

Tennessee were admitted into the Union; the army 
and navy were organized upon a permanent basis; 
Jay's treaty, determining our relations with Eng- 
land, resulting in much difference of opinion, was 
considered and ratified ; the whiskey insurrection 
was suppressed; the wars with the Indians, con- 
ducted successively by Harmar, St. Clair and 
Wayne — all of them Pennsylvanians — were fought, 
and, in the ably managed campaign of Wayne, the 
power of the hostile tribes was finally broken, and 
the West won for civilization; and the brief war 
with France, reflecting much credit upon our 
youthful navy and upon Commodore Thomas Trux- 
ton, afterward Sheriff o£ Philadelphia County, was 
courageously undertaken and maintalne'^. Here, 
too, was officially announced the death of WaaK- 
ington, when John Marshall offered a resolution 
" that a committee, in conjunction with one from 
the Senate, be appointed to consider on the most 
suitable manner of paying honor to the memory of 
the man first in war, first in peace and first in the 
hearts of his countrymen," thus originating an ex- 
pressive phrase destined in America never to be for- 
gotten. Congress sat here for the last time on the 



ii6 CONGRESS HALL 

14th day of May, 1800. The last act of the Sen- 
ate in this building was to request the President to 
instruct the Attorney-General to prosecute William 
Duane, editor of the Aurora, for a defamatory libel. 
Then, after the passage of a resolution extending its 
thanks to " the commissioners of the city and county 
of Philadelphia for the convenient and elegant ac- 
commodations furnished by them for the use of the 
Senate during the residence of the national govern- 
ment in the city," that august body adjourned to 
meet thereafter in the city of Washington, and the 
eclat incident to the location of the capital of the 
country departed from Philadelphia forever. 

At a later period a committee of Congress 
recommended the appropriation of a sum of one 
hundred thousand dollars as compensation by the 
government for the use of these buildings, but 
nothing came of the proposition, and this city has 
the satisfaction of knov^ing that among its many 
patriotic services is the fact that vi^ithout return of 
any kind, it furnished during ten years an abiding 
place to the homeless nation.* 

♦ Brodhead's "Location of the National Capital," Magazine of 
Amtrican History, January, 1884. 



CONGRESS HALL 117 

The subsequent history of the building is less 
eventful, and, though covering a period when it 
would seem that the facts ought to be accessible, is 
in reality much more obscure. A plan in a volume 
entitled "Philadelphia in 1824," shows that at that 
time the north room of the lower floor was occu- 
pied by the District Court, the south room by the 
Common Pleas, the north room of the upper floor 
by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the south 
room by the Circuit Court of the United States, and 
that between these two rooms on the upper floor 
on the west was the Law Library, and on the east 
w«,r« tk/^ Control! **rs of Public Schools. Definitely 
when these courts began Lk-jr sessions here neither 
Judge Mitchell, nor Thompson Westcott, wiuo macie 
a thorough search of the newspapers and most other 
sources of contemporary information, was able to 
ascertain. Some further light can now, however, 
be given. In the printed report of the trial, in 
1809, of General Michael Bright, before Judges 
Bushrod Washington and Richard Peters, in the 
Circuit Court of the United States, an important 
case which involved a question of jurisdiction be- 
tween the State of Pennsylvania and the United 



ii8 CONGRESS HALL 

States Government, and whose events of a very 
warlike nature caused the house at the northwest 
corner of Seventh and Arch streets to be known 
as Fort Rittenhouse, upon page 201, there appears 
an affidavit of Thomas Passmore, an auctioneer of 
the city. He deposed "that, on Sunday last, the 
30th of April, ultimo, between five and six o'clock 
in the afternoon, as he was standing near the door 
of the County Court House, at the corner of Sixth 
and Chesnut Streets, he heard some voices calling 
from the balcony of the Court House, * Corless, 
that's wrong.' Upon looking round this deponent 
saw Matthias Corless, who this deponent uiiJ-r 
stood was one of- the jurors in the case of the 
^Jnited States against Bright and others, passing 
from the said Court House across the street towards 
the Shakespere Hotel, a tavern situate at the north- 
west corner of Sixth and Chesnut Streets." That 
court was therefore sitting here in 1809. The 
directory for 1809 says that the Orphans' Court 
then sat "on the third Friday of every month at 
the County Court House." The jurisdiction of 
the Orphans' Court was at that time exercised by 
the judges of the Court of Common Pleas, who 



CONGRESS HALL 119 

were also the judges of the Courts of Oyer and 
Terminer and of the Quarter Sessions. It is prob- 
able, therefore, that the United States Courts and 
the Common Pleas, with its accessories, commenced 
their sessions here soon after the building was sur- 
rendered by the Congress, and presumably the 
Common Pleas continued to hold its sessions in 
the building until the number of criminal cases 
became so great as to require continuous sessions of 
the criminal courts. The United States Courts 
remained until September 15, 1826. According 
to Westcott, the District Court began to hold its 
sesslonc hexp- in 181 8, and it continued to sit here 
until its final dissolution on the 4th of January, 
1875. The following list of the judges ^ of that 
court while in this building is taken from Martin's 
"Bench and Bar": 

PRESIDENT JUDGES. 

Joseph Hemphill, May 6, 181 1. 

Joseph Borden McKean, October i, 181 8. 

Jared Ingersoll, March 19, 1821. 

Moses Levy, December 18, 1822. 

Joseph Borden McKean, March 21, 1825. 

Joseph Barnes, October 24, 1826. 

Thomas McKean Pettit, April 22, 1835. 



I20 CONGRESS HALL 

Joel Jones, April 8, 1845. 

George Sharswood, February i, 1848. 

John Innes Clark Hare, December i, 1867. 

ASSOCIATE JUDGES. 

Anthony Simmons, May 6, 181 1. 
Jacob Summer, June 3, 181 1. 
Thomas Sergeant, October 20, 18 14. 
Joseph Borden McKean, March 27, 18 14. 
Joseph Barnes, October i, 1818. 
Joseph Borden McKean, March 17, 1821. 
Benjamin Rawle Morgan, March 29, 1821. 
John Hallowell, March 27, 1825. 
Charles Sidney Coxe, October 24, 1826. 
Thomas McKean Pettit, February 16, 1833. 
George McDowell Stroud, March 30, i8?j:- 
Joel Jones, April 22, 1835. 
JoM^' KInG Findlay, February 5, 1848. 
John Innes Clark Hare, December i, 1851. 
Martin Russell Thayer, December i, 1867. 
Thomas Greenbank, December 7, 1868. 
Martin Russell Thayer, March 27, 1869. 
James Lynd, December 5, 1870. 
James Tyndale Mitchell, December 4, 1871. 
Amos Briggs, March 25, 1872. 

Upon the abolition of the District Court and 
the reorganization of the Courts of Common Pleas, 
the south room of the upper story C and the north 
room D were assigned to the Court of Common 



CONGRESS HALL 121 

Pleas No. 2, and have been occupied by that court 
until to-day. The judges of No. 2 who have sat 
here have been: 

PRESIDENT JUDGE. 
John Innes Clark Hare, January 4, 1875. 

ASSOCIATE JUDGES. 
James Tyndale Mitchell, January 4, 1875. 
Joseph T. Pratt, January 4, 1875. 
David Newlin Fell, May 3, 1877. 
Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker, January 9, 1889. 
Theodore Finley Jenkins, January i, 1894. 
Mayer Sulzberger, January i, 1895. 

Three ot the judges have gone from this build- 
ing to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania — George 
Sharswood, James Tyndale Mitchell and David 
New^lin Fell — and perhaps no living American is 
more widely respected among men of the English- 
speaking race for his learning and attainments as a 
jurist than the president judge of this court. The 
south room of the lower floor was used by the 
Court of Oyer and Terminer until the erection of 
the brick building on Sixth street below Chestnut, 
in 1867, as I am informed by Judge F. Carroll 
Brewster ; and among the famous murder cases tried 



122 CONGRESS HALL 

here were those of Richard Smith, Arthur Spring, 
Charles Langfeldt, and that most ferocious of Phila- 
delphia murderers, Anton Probst. The Court of 
Quarter Sessions continued to hold its sessions in 
that room until its removal to the City Hall, at 
Broad and Market streets, July 31, 1891. From 
that time until the present, it has been used for 
jury trials by Judges Craig Biddle and Francois 
Amedee Bregy, of the Court of Common Pleas 
No. I . For many years the Law Academy of Phil- 
adelphia held its moot court in room D. 

The Law Association had its meetings and 
kept its library upon the upper floor from 18 19 till 
1872, and on October 28, 1841, made a circular 
announcement that ** Gentlemen who wish to con- 
verse will be pleased to withdraw to the conversation 
room on the east side of the hall." 

The north room of the first floor has been the 
office of the Prothonotary of the Courts of Com- 
mon Pleas, Colonel William B. Mann, since Janu- 
ary, 1879. Before that date it was occupied as the 
Tax Office, and at a still earlier time by the High- 
way Department. 

The venerable building has not been without 



CONGRESS HALL 123 

its vicissitudes. On the 26th of December, 1821, 
a fire, caused by a defective flue, burned the north- 
ern part of the roof and injured the cupola, but the 
activity of the firemen preserved it from destruction. 
During a conflagration at Hart's building in Decem- 
ber, 1 85 1, it caught fire several times and was in 
the greatest danger, but was again happily saved. 
At one time legislation was proposed and passed by 
one of the Houses at Harrisburg to tear down the 
State House and other buildings and sell the ground 
for what it would bring at auction. The Act 
of August 5, 1870, providing for the appointment 
of a building commission, directed that this hall 
should be removed but, fortunately, that part of 
the Act has never been carried into effect, and 
was repealed at the last session of the Legislature. 
Nor has it been without a suggestion of trag- 
edy. Upon the morning of December 11, 1866, 
Judge F. Carroll Brewster, though holding the 
Court of Common Pleas, sat temporarily in Room 
D to hear an application for the appointment 
of a receiver in a case of Vankirk vs. Page. 
As he leaned forward to talk to an officer an 
iron ventilator weighing seventy pounds fell from 



124 CONGRESS HALL 

the ceiling and crushed the back and legs of his 
chair.* 

On the 1 6th of February, 1893, ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ 
Lukens vs. the City, which had been on trial in 
room D for four days, was given to the jury shortly 
after three o'clock in the afternoon. As the judge 
left the court room, the plaintiff asked him whether 
he would not wait and take the verdict. After a 
momentary consideration, he declined, saying it 
could be sealed and brought into the court the next 
morning. A short time afterward, a mass of plaster 
and lath, eight inches in thickness and weighing 
hundreds of pounds, fell upon the bench and chair, 
crushing the bench to the floor, and so filling the 
room with debris that for some days the court was 
held in the lower story. The danger to the judges 
had no effect to deter a ribald wit of the bar from 
suggesting, " Fiat justitia, ruat ceiling.'' 

The hour for departure has arrived. There is 
a French proverb which runs, that the man who 
wears silk stockings is careful about stepping into the 
mud. It has been the good fortune of the Court of 
Common Pleas No. 2 hitherto to conduct its proceed- 

The Press, December 12, 1866. 



CONGRESS HALL 125 

ings amid surroundings and influences calculated to 
be helpful in aiding it to maintain a high standard 
of rectitude and professional effort. In this place 
those measures were taken which established the 
government of the United States upon a firm basis, 
and started it upon its wonderful career of develop- 
ment and prosperity. Here for the greater part of 
a century the rights of personal liberty of the citi- 
zens of Philadelphia were decided, and their rights 
of property, since the judgments of the District 
Court were for the most part final, were deter- 
mined. The tread of Washington and Adams and 
Jefferson had scarcely ceased to resound amid these 
walls, before they began to hearken to the learning 
of McKean and Sharswood and Hare. The elo- 
quence of Stockton and Morris, of Marshall and 
Boudinot, strenuous and urgent about matters of 
state and finance, died away into the past only to give 
place to the eloquence of Binney, and Meredith, 
and McCall, and Cuyler, and Brewster, and Shep- 
pard, striving for the solution of abstruse and 
intricate legal problems, and that of Reed, and 
Brown, and Mann, and Cassidy, contending over 
questions of life and death. And it is to be hoped 



126 CONGRESS HALL 

that the end is not yet. We depart with an assured 
faith that the people of this efficient and forceful 
community, possessing as they do the sacred fanes 
of America, and mindful as they are of the import- 
ance and value of such possession, will see to it that 
this building is retained unchanged for the future 
generations of citizens, and that its hallowed mem- 
ories are carefully preserved and proudly cherished. 



THE PURCHASE OF 
LOUISIANA 

[An address delivered at the St. Louis Fair on Pennsylvania Day, 
the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the Battle of Fallen Timbers.] 

IN the United States of America, while the 
terms east and west are more or less uncertain 
in their designation, it is perhaps sufficiently accu- 
rate to say that when reference is made to the West 
that region is intended which is not included within 
the limits of the thirteen original states and lies to 
the westward of the Allegheny mountains. The 
settlement of this region and the knitting of the 
ties which were to unite it to the states bordering 
upon the Atlantic ocean were of the utmost im- 
portance to the nation. In time it has come to be 
the centre of population, as well as of political in- 
fluence, and if it had remained permanently under 
the control of Spain, France or England, or of any 
other foreign country, in the large sense there never 



128 THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 

would have been a nation at all. During the War 
of the Rebellion there were sacrificed a half million 
of lives and there were expended four billions of 
dollars to prevent a cleavage of the country by a 
line running eastward and westward. It was cor- 
rectly felt that such a division meant the ultimate 
loss of all that the future had in store for us 
and that supreme efforts must be exerted to avert 
the threatened calamity. A cleavage by a line run- 
ning northward and southward along the Allegheny 
mountains would have been equally fatal. We are 
able in this way to form some estimate of the im- 
mense advantages to the country which resulted 
from securing that region as a part of the national 
domain. If it shall come about, as now seems 
probable, that the American people are to be one 
of the dominant nations, imposing their race char- 
acteristics, seizing the avenues of trade, and extend- 
ing their institutions, and if, as also seems probable, 
their national force shall be exerted under the in- 
fluence of the states within the valley of the Mis- 
sissippi, then the settlement of the West was an 
event of tremendous significance in the history of 
the world. 



THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 129 

That settlement was the result of no precon- 
ceived design. It came about as the consequence 
of no deliberate purpose. No nation, as did Greece 
and Rome in the ancient days, sent out colonies to 
occupy the land upon a prearranged system and 
under the protecting and fostering care of the 
government at home. It was the outcome rather 
of that impulse which has led the descendants 
of the old Teutonic race, whether they be Saxon 
or Suabian, to wander; which before the dawn 
of history impelled the barbaric tribes to pour 
over the Ural mountains into Europe, and which 
in the sixth century urged one of these tribes 
under the lead of Hengist, Horsa and Cerdic 
to cross the North Sea and seize what we now 
know as England. The hardy borderers living on 
the outskirts of the older colonies in the east 
pushed across the Alleghenies, rifle in hand, to 
found new homes upon richer lands, and to take 
the initial steps in the establishment of states des- 
tined ere long to become both prosperous and 
potent. The difficulties that were encountered were 
overcome. The dangers that arose in the path were 
surmounted. The wild beasts that filled the caverns 



I30 THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 

below and clung to the limbs of the trees overhead 
were driven from their lairs. The savages w^ho 
lurked in the forests and who endeavored to con- 
front the inpour of emigrants, with treachery and 
revenge in their hearts and scalping knives in their 
hands, were, after many a fierce struggle, beaten and 
destroyed. Those adventurers who perished on the 
way were soon followed by others equally deter- 
mined and more fortunate, until communities were 
established and the new life in the wilderness was 
too deeply rooted to be uptorn. 

It is my purpose, in this state, said to be more 
like our own than any other ; in this city, which has 
been called the Philadelphia of the West, upon the 
occasion of the exposition intended to commemo- 
rate the most extensive acquisition of lands ever 
made by the government, upon this most impor- 
tant and interesting anniversary, to narrate, in a 
briet way and in broad lines, the part borne by 
Pennsylvania in these events so fraught with great 
results. Among the pioneers, at once the earliest 
and most distinguished, made the hero of song and 
story in many tongues and many lands, introduced 
by Byron into his poem of Don Juan, his statue set 



THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 131 

in marble in the Capitol at Washington by Ken- 
tucky, as the representative of her highest achieve- 
ment, vv^as Daniel Boone. In later days the West 
gave to the nation him who has been happily 
limned by Lowell as the first American, him who 
rose to greater heights in broader ways than any 
other of the presidents. When in time to come the 
muse of history shall be called upon to select from 
her pages those rulers who tower aloft above the 
rest, who have conferred the most benefit upon 
their fellow men, who have shown in vast achieve- 
ment purity of character and breadth of intelli- 
gence, alongside of Cyrus, Alfred, Charlemagne 
and William of Orange, she will place Abraham 
Lincoln. It is a significant fact that Daniel Boone 
and John Lincoln, the great-grandfather of the 
President, were both born in the same locality in 
the county of Berks in the state of Pennsylvania, 
and both pursued the same path on their way 
toward the West. Among those most celebrated in 
the annals of the border and most conspicuous for 
doughty deeds done in the Indian wars — Wetzel, 
Van Bibber, Van Metre, Brady, Logan, John Todd, 
Levi Todd, the grandfather of Abraham Lincoln's 



132 THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 

wife, as well as Simon Girty, the thoroughly hated 
renegade who took part with the savages — all had 
their origin in Pennsylvania. John Filson, whose 
name is borne by the Filson Club of Louisville, 
who wrote the first history of Kentucky, laid out 
the city of Cincinnati, and was subsequently killed 
by the Indians, was born within twenty-five miles 
of Philadelphia in the county of Chester. The 
movement westward may be said to have begun 
when in 1732 Hans Joest Heijt left the valley of 
the Perkiomen, and, at the head of a little band of 
colonists, took up large tracts of land and made the 
earliest settlement in the Shenandoah valley in 
Virginia. The Dunker settlement along the Shen- 
andoah, afterward broken up by the savages, and 
the settlement of peaceable Moravian Indians at 
Gnadenhutten in Ohio, who were massacred by 
equally savage whites, marked futile efforts to ex- 
tend over the land those Christian principles in the 
contact of the races which had proven successful 
along the Delaware for three-quarters of a century, 
and are now again exemplified by the government 
in the erection and conduct of such schools as that 
at Carlisle. 



THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 133 

The emigrants in their march to the westward 
in the main followed one of two routes. They 
either went on foot or horseback over the Alle- 
ghenies by the " Wilderness Road," famous in 
western annals, blazed by Boone on his way from 
North Carolina to Kentucky in 1775, or they 
floated in boats down the Ohio from Pittsburg. 

If the land was to be secured for civilization it 
must not only be occupied, — it must be won. It 
was inhabited and roamed over by fierce tribes of 
savages, resolute to oppose what they regarded as 
an invasion of their hunting grounds, and who 
waged a treacherous and ruthless warfare which 
spared neither child, woman nor home. The Brit- 
ish, who still occupied forts and trading stations 
along the lakes, incited them to resistance and fur- 
nished them with scalping knives, firearms and 
ammunition. The rifle in the hands of the hunter 
and borderer from Pennsylvania, Virginia and North 
Carolina, wielded with both courage and skill, was 
sufiicient for his individual protection, and relying 
alone upon their own prowess, the backwoodsmen 
pushed their way into Kentucky and Tennessee, 
but with the coming of men given to more peace- 



134 THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 

ful pursuits and the growth of settlements which 
were ever subject to attacks by the wily foe, and 
might at any time be laid waste, other measures 
became necessary. In 1787 an ordinance was passed 
by Congress providing for the sale of lands and set- 
tlement in the northwest, and the creation of a ter- 
ritorial government. Arthur St. Clair, who had 
been a major general from Pennsylvania during the 
War of the Revolution, was appointed governor by 
Washington. The Ohio Company made a large 
purchase of lands, and colonists, for the most part 
from New England, with Rufus Putnam as an 
avant-courier, began to pour into Ohio. Between 
1783 and 1790 fifteen hundred men, women and 
children were slain by the Indians. In the latter 
year there were only two hundred and eighty men 
living on the lands of the Ohio Company who 
were capable for warfare, and the people needed 
protection. In that year St. Clair sent Josiah Har- 
mar, an officer of distinction in the Revolution, 
born in Philadelphia of parents from the valley of 
the Perkiomen, with fourteen hundred men into 
the wilderness to punish the Indians. He burned a 
number of their villages and reached the interior of 



THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 135 

Indiana, where he was defeated with a loss of over 
two hundred men. In 1791 St. Clair led an army 
of twenty-three hundred troops into the Indian 
country, but was compelled to retreat with a loss of 
more than six hundred killed and wounded. Among 
the killed was General Richard Butler, a brilliant 
officer, who had fought bravely in the Pennsylvania 
Line through the Revolution. 

And then Washington, smitten with anger and 
chagrin, sent to the front Anthony Wayne. In his 
"Winning of the West," Roosevelt writes: "Of all 
men, Wayne was the best fitted for the work. In 
the Revolutionary War no other general — American, 
British or French — won such a reputation for hard 
fighting and for daring energy and dogged courage. 
. . . But his head was as cool as his heart was 
stout." 

He had won distinction at Brandywine, Ger- 
mantown, and Monmouth. He had been in com- 
mand at the capture of Stony Point, by assault, if 
not the most decisive, certainly the most brilliant 
achievement of the Revolutionary War. He had 
given further proofs of his capabilities in contests 
with Cornwallis in Virginia and with the Indians 



136 THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 

in Georgia. No other Revolutionary general has 
had so many counties named for him except Wash- 
ington. The previous failures had caused a timid 
feeling to pervade the councils of the administration, 
and every effort vv^as made to secure an understand- 
ing without recourse to war. The Secretary of 
War wrote to Wayne that another defeat would be 
"ruinous to the reputation of the government." 
Wayne raised an army of twenty-iive hundred men, 
organized and controlled it and introduced the dis- 
cipline which was the necessary preparation for the 
coming struggle. In the late summer of 1792 he 
established a camp on the Ohio twenty-seven miles 
below Pittsburg. In May of 1793 he advanced to 
the site of Cincinnati. In October he went forward 
to the Miami river, eighty miles north of Cincin- 
nati, where, surrounded by hostile Indians, he spent 
the winter. He built a fort upon the battlefield 
where St. Clair had met defeat, which he called 
" Fort Recovery," and buried the bones of the 
soldiers who had lost their lives in that disastrous 
engagement. Cut off from communication with 
the national government, whose capital was then 
Philadelphia, he had been given authority to dis- 



THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 137 

lodge the English garrison at the rapids of the 
Maumee if it should be found necessary. To his 
discretion, therefore, it was left to determine 
whether or not another war with England should 
be undertaken. On June 30th, 1794, he repelled 
an attack upon Fort Recovery. Then marching 
seventy miles further northward, he built a fort on 
the Maumee called "Fort Defiance," and a hundred 
and ten years ago to-day fought, almost under the 
walls of the English fortification, the important 
battle whose anniversary we celebrate. About two 
thousand Indians and Canadians were engaged and 
they were completely routed with great loss. A 
complaint made by the captain in command of the 
English fort met with a sharp rebuff. It was the 
most decisive victory won in all of our Indian wars. 
Both the power and the spirit of the hostile tribes 
were broken. For fifteen years thereafter there was 
peace along the border and the extension of settle- 
ments and the creation of states in the West were 
the result. Says Dr. Stille : " In opening the mag- 
nificent national domain of the West to emigrants, 
secured in their life, liberty and property by laws of 
their own making, it may well be regarded when 



138 THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 

we reflect upon the history of that vast region during 
the last hundred years as having given birth to a 
new era in the history of American civilization." 

Says Roosevelt: "It was the most complete 
and important victory ever gained over the north- 
western Indians during the forty years warfare to 
which it put an end; and it was the only consid- 
erable pitched battle in which they lost more than 
their foes." 

Pennsylvania had still another service to render 
in the settlement of the West. The purchase of 
Louisiana from France in 1803, which included all 
of the lands to the west of the Mississippi, save 
those owned by Spain, was approached with mis- 
giving and attended with uncertainty. The oppo- 
sition was earnest and decided. The real reason 
for objection upon the part of the eastern states 
was the sense that with the growth of the West 
and the admission of new states likely to result, 
there would be a corresponding diminution in their 
own influence in national affairs, and as has often 
happened in the course of our history, the inspiring 
motive was hidden under an avowed interest in the 
maintenance of the constitution. It was contended 



THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 139 

that the proposed purchase was in violation of that 
instrument, since there was no provision in it for 
the extension of territory, and that no new state 
could be admitted into the union save by the unan- 
imous consent of all the original states. It was 
argued that we had land enough, that these track- 
less wastes could never be utilized, that complica- 
tions with other nations unforeseen and innumer- 
able would arise, and that expansion meant destruc- 
tion. Quincy threatened that if this step should 
be taken it would be followed by a dissolution of 
the union. In similar vein. Senator Plumer of 
New Hampshire said : "Admit this western world 
into the union, and you destroy at once the weight 
and importance of the eastern states and compel 
them to establish a separate independent empire," 
and Griswold of Connecticut added : " It is not con- 
sistent with the spirit of a republican government 
that its territory should be exceedingly large. . . . 
The vast and unmanageable extent which the acces- 
sion of Louisiana will give the United States, the 
consequent dispersion of our population and the de- 
struction of that balance which it is so important 
to maintain between the eastern and western states 



I40 THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 

threatens at no very distant day the subversion of our 
union." When the final vote was had upon the 
bill to enable the President to take possession of the 
territory, both of the senators and all of the eighteen 
representatives from Pennsylvania cast their votes in 
favor of its passage. The significance of this action 
in what is everywhere now recognized as one of the 
most important crises in the advancement of the 
nation is enhanced when we remember that all of 
the senators from Massachusetts, Connecticut and 
New Hampshire voted in the negative. Among 
them were Timothy Pickering and John Quincy 
Adams. 

The position assumed by Pennsylvania upon 
this vital question is the more gratifying because of 
the reasoning in support of it, the soundness of 
which the subsequent course of events has entirely 
justified. It was extremely difficult for contempora- 
ries to catch the full import and future consequences 
of the movement in which they were engaged. 
Jefferson was looking to the opening of the Missis- 
sippi river and securing control of its mouth, and 
his instructions to his representatives in France were 
to make an offer only for New Orleans and the 



THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 141 

Floridas. It did not occur to Jefferson, Madison, 
Monroe or Livingston, who were acting for us, to 
make a proposition for the purchase of the immense 
territory west of the river. It was Napoleon, who 
did not care to retain these lands if he parted with 
New Orleans, who first broached the suggestion. 
As the country has grown and trade has followed 
the railroads east instead of the rivers south, it has 
been proven that this territory constituted the vast 
importance of the acquisition. With keen insight 
and remarkably clear vision Thomas McKean, in an 
address to the Legislature of Pennsylvania, Decem- 
ber 9, 1803, said: "The value of the acquisition, 
even with the sole view of accommodating and 
securing the commerce of the western States and 
territory of the union, every candid mind will ap- 
preciate much higher than the stipulated price; but 
when we consider it in relation to the present as the 
probable means by which we avoid a participation 
in the war that has been fatally rekindled in Europe, 
or in relation to the future as affording a natural 
limit to our territorial possessions, by which the 
danger of foreign collision and conflict is far re- 
moved, while the sphere of domestic industry and 



142 THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 

enterprise is enlarged, the event may well be regarded 
as an auspicious manifestation of the interference of 
Providence in the affairs of men." 

But the entire consequences in all of their 
immense proportions, as we, looking backward, are 
able to see them to-day, were forecasted in the res- 
olution of the Assembly drafted by William Maclay: 
"The acquisition of Louisiana promises incalculable 
advantages not only with regard to our foreign rela- 
tions but also to our internal industry, as the territo- 
ries of the United States will now possess a soil and 
climate adapted to every production and an outlet is 
thereby secured for the western parts of the union 
to the ocean and the trade of the world." 

Pennsylvania has done much for the American 
union of states. Her founder gave a practical ex- 
ample of the possibility of the application of those 
broad principles of religious and civil liberty upon 
which it is based. In its infancy she nursed its 
feeble efforts in her chief city. Long ago, by com- 
mon consent, having regard to the benefits derived 
from her assistance, her contributions to its wars and 
her influence in its development and among the 
counsels of its statesmen, she was hailed as the 



THE PURCHASE OF LOUISIANA 143 



Keystone of the arch. This proud position ac- 
corded to her in the past she has maintained until 
the present and will strive to deserve in the future. 
The American people do not forget that she alone 
of the thirteen original states had a regiment in 
the Philippines. They do not forget that moment- 
ous conflict upon her soil in 1863, where one of 
her sons dealt the death blow to the effort to rend 
asunder the nation. But never did she exhibit with 
more clearness her poise and good judgment, never 
did she confer more lasting advantage upon the 
country than when, disregarding the appeals of selfish 
interest, with her whole heart, she threw the great 
weight of her influence in favor of the extension of 
the national domain westward to the Pacific ocean. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 
IN PENNSYLVANIA 

[Washington's birthday has been celebrated at the University of Penn- 
sylvania as *' University Day" for more than a century, and in 1826 was 
formally set apart in the University Calendar as one of the annual observ- 
ances of the University. The folio w^ing oration was delivered on ♦'Uni- 
versity Day," 1904, at the American Academy of Music] 

We meet under the auspices of that University 
which, in its plan of organization, in its teachings 
of medicine and law, and in recent years in its 
archaeological investigations of eastern civilizations, 
has led all others upon the continent ; and we meet 
upon the anniversary of the birth of the great Vir- 
ginian, the fame of whose deeds, at once a beacon 
and an example for mankind, has reached to the 
confines of the earth and will continue to the limits 
of time. Are the careers of those men who have 
seemingly fashioned the institutions of a nation and 
moulded the destinies of a race the outcome of 
exceptional capabilities and characteristics, not be- 
stowed upon their fellows, or are the results due to 



WASHINGTON IN PENNSYLVANIA 145 

the favorable conditions existing at the time the 
successful efforts were made? Did Alexander of 
Macedon and Charlemagne found empires through 
the exercise of their own unusual power of will 
and gifts of intelligence, or were they but the man- 
ifestations of a force which made the Greeks, in 
one case, and the Germans, in the other, sec that if 
great ends were to be accomplished there must be 
a subordination of the lesser states surrounding them 
and a combination of the strength of all, — a force 
which impelled them forward irresistibly? Is not 
this a force common to all mankind, which has 
builded up the British Empire and is even now 
building up America, indicating itself in the move- 
ments of trade and transportation, as well as in 
those of government? Would the Reformation 
have come in its own good time had there been no 
Martin Luther ? Had Napoleon been killed upon 
the bridge of Lodi, would the French Revolution 
have followed its own appointed channels neverthe- 
less? Is Darwin correct when he attributes even 
the slow formation of individual and race charac- 
ter to the nature of the environment? Perhaps 
a safe position to aSvSume would be that in the con- 



146 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

duct of revolutions against long-established and 
seemingly overwhelming power, in the creation and 
development of new governments, and in the efforts 
to ameliorate the conditions of the masses of 
humanity, if success is to be attained, there must 
be the underlying currents which make it possible, 
as well as the leader of rare skill and intelligence, 
possessing the capacity to direct them. If this be 
true, then it may be of service to call attention, as 
has never been done before, to the field whereon 
the achievements of George Washington were 
accomplished and to the surroundings wherein his 
faculties were exercised, if not developed, and the 
energies of his public career were expended. 

In the year 1753 the two most powerful na- 
tions of Europe, — England and France, — which had 
long been enemies and rivals, were again upon the 
verge of a struggle. The declaration of war was 
not made until three years later, but the mutterings 
and rumblings were being heard, the preliminaries 
were being arranged, and all men knew that the 
outbreak could not be long postponed. It was a 
great stake for which the combatants were about to 
strip, the possession of a continent destined ere long 



IN PENNSYLVANIA 147 

to support a people among the foremost upon the 
earth. Man proposes, but the gods dispose. When 
Wolfe died as he clutched his victory at Quebec, 
there were weeping and wailing in every household 
in the American colonies. Little did they who 
lamented think how different might have been their 
fate if that energetic spirit, instead of the dilatory 
Howe, had confronted them at Brandywine, Ger- 
mantown, and Valley Forge. Never did it occur to 
either of the contestants while they were pampering 
the savages and gathering the cannon, nor when 
they were ready for the encounter, that no matter 
which of them should prove the stronger or more 
valiant, the reward should go to neither ; that in 
the end his most Christian majesty of France must 
be obeisant and the king of England must submit 
to an underling in one of the camps. The English 
colonies were along the coast. The French were 
enclosing them with a series of forts intended to 
run up the St. Lawrence, thence to the Ohio and 
to the mouth of the Mississippi. In a sense it 
may be said that the right of the French line 
was at New Orleans, the left at Quebec, and the 
centre at the junction of the Allegheny and Monon- 



148 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

gahela rivers, where Fort Duquesne was erected in 
1754, in the western part of Pennsylvania. What 
a series of events had their beginning when George 
Washington came to Pennsylvania in 1753! The 
unheeding world might well have listened. A 
young man, in his twenty-second year, of limited 
education and narrow reading, tall and well made, 
precise and prim in his methods, stiff in his man- 
ners and chirography; with an instinct of thrift 
which led him to manage farms and raise horses, to 
seek in his love affairs, whether with maid or 
widow, for a woman ** wi' lots o' munny laaid by, 
and a nicetish bit of land," and enabled him to ac- 
cumulate one of the largest fortunes of his time; 
but ever a gentleman ; whose youth had been de- 
voted to fox-hunting and athletic sports, and who 
since he was sixteen had been surveying lands in the 
valleys of Virginia, left the narrow confines of his 
early associations and took his first step into the 
outer and larger world. Governor Dinwiddie, of 
Virginia, sent him with a little force of seven men 
to the French commander in western Pennsylvania 
to protest against the building of forts and the 
occupancy of the land. Starting on the 1 5th of 



77V PENNSYLVANIA 149 



November, 1753, through the forests primeval, in 
the winter, surrounded by and often confronted 
with the savages, fired at by a treacherous Indian 
guide, rafting on the partly frozen rivers, he found 
his way to the site of Pittsburg and to a fort fifteen 
miles south of Lake Erie. It was a successful jour- 
ney. He delivered his message and returned on 
the 1 6th of January, 1754, to Williamsburg, with 
the answer of the commandant and with much 
knowledge of the country and of the armament 
and garrisons of the forts. As a result he was ap- 
pointed lieutenant-colonel. 

At the head of one hundred and fifty men, 
accompanied by Jacob Van Braam, a Dutchman, 
one of his former attendants, who at an earlier time 
had taught him the drill, he, on April 2, 1754, 
started again for Pennsylvania. On the 25th he 
had reached the Great Meadows, in the neighbor- 
hood of the present Uniontown, in Fayette county. 
There he learned that a body of the French were in 
the vicinity. Supported by friendly Indians and led 
by Scarooyadi, a Delaware, to the French camp, 
through the darkness, he made an attack in the 
earlv morning. For fifteen minutes the rifles re- 



150 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

sounded and the balls whistled. Of the provincial 
troops three were wounded and one was killed. Of 
the French one was wounded and ten were killed, 
including Jumonville, their leader, and twenty-one 
were captured. Only one, a Canadian, escaped. And 
so it came about that the opening battle in that strug- 
gle of tremendous import, which was to determine 
that the vast continent of America should belong to 
the countrymen of Hermann, and not to those of 
Varus, was fought bv George Washington upon the 
soil of Pennsylvania. 

The victory was won. The prisoners were 
hurried away to Virginia. But fortune does not 
extend her favors to any man for long. The career 
of Washington, like that of most men, was a series 
of successes and reverses. 

"To all earthly men, 
In spite of right and wrong and love and hate, 
One day shall come the turn of luckless fate." 

It was rumored that Contrecoeur was at Fort 
Duquesne with a force of one thousand French and 
many Indians, and the young colonel was in trouble. 
On May 31 he wrote, "We expect every hour to 
be attacked by a superior force." He threw up in- 



IN PENNSYLVANIA 151 



trenchments one hundred feet square and built a 
palisade with a trench outside, which, because there 
had been a scarcity of provisions, he called Fort 
Necessity. The site is along the bank of a little 
stream flowing through the centre of a meadow two 
hundred and fifty yards wide, set at a considerable 
elevation among the hills. All that remains now is 
a slight accumulation of earth where the lines of 
the fort ran and a large stone with a square hole 
cut in it for a corner post ; but what there is ought 
to be carefully preserved by the state. He received 
a reinforcement which increased his strength to 
three hundred men, and he talked about exerting 
"our noble courage with spirit." Later there came 
one hundred more men from South Carolina. He 
advanced thirteen miles further in the direction of 
Fort Duquesne, and then, learning that the French 
were strong in numbers and coming to meet him, 
he retreated, July i, to Fort Necessity. Thither 
he was followed by five hundred French and several 
hundred Indians. All through the day of July 3 
the firing was kept up around the fort, those within 
being huddled together in danger and discom- 
fort, until twelve had been killed and forty-three 



152 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

wounded. The next morning, July 4, — at Phila- 
delphia, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg a fateful day in 
American history, Washington, having signed papers 
of capitulation, marched forth with his troops. He 
abandoned a large flag and surrendered the fort. 
He was permitted to take the military stores, except 
the artillery. He agreed to return the prisoners he 
had captured and sent to Virginia ; but, worst of all, 
the papers he signed referred to " I assassinat du Sieur 
de 'Jumonvilley Our historians have been prone to 
throw the blame for this language upon the imper- 
fect translation of Van Braam ; but since the French 
'■'■assassinat'" and the English "assassination" are 
substantially the same word, — sufficient to attract 
the attention of the most unlearned, — the explana- 
tion fails to satisfy. The affair, as is apt to be the 
case when the foe gains the glory and the field, be- 
came the subject of much animadversion. Horace 
Walpole called him a *' brave braggart." Dinwiddie 
reduced his rank to that of captain, and found 
reasons for declining to return the prisoners. There- 
upon Washington resigned from the service, went 
back to Mount Vernon, and his ambition to hold a 
commission in the English army was never gratified. 



IN PENNSYLVANIA 153 

The following year Braddock disembarked and 
encamped his army at Alexandria. Washington 
offered his services as an aide, and his experience 
with the French and the Indians and his knowledge 
of the country wherein the advance was to be made 
rendered them of the utmost value. It was the first 
army thoroughly drilled, equipped, and appointed 
he had ever seen. On that fatal battle-field near 
Pittsburg, now covered by the mills o± the United 
States Steel Corporation (tempora mutantur et nos in 
Hits mutamiir), where Braddock was killed, where 
eight hundred and fifty-five French and Indians 
completely routed three thousand disciplined Eng- 
lish soldiers, he did doughty and valiant deeds. It 
has been described as "the most extraordinary vic- 
tory ever obtained and the furthest flight ever 
made;" but in the battle he had two horses killed 
under him, and out of it he came with four bullet 
holes through his coat. There are prophets among 
other peoples than Israel. Samuel Davies, on the 
17th of August, 1755, preached a sermon at Han- 
over, in Virginia, wherein, with less plaint than 
Jeremiah and clearer vision than Isaiah, he ex- 
claimed, "That heroic youth. Colonel Washington, 



154 GEORGE WASHINGTON 



whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto 
preserved in so signal a manner for some important 
service to his country." 

Fortune took another turn. For these two 
defeats there soon came compensation. With a 
regiment of Virginians, in 1758, he took part in 
the expedition of General John Forbes, whose 
bones now lie in Christ churchyard in Philadelphia, 
and at the head of his men and the army, on the 
25th of November, marched into Fort Duquesne. 
The magazine had been exploded. The fort had 
been set on fire. The French had taken bateaux 
and departed. Their influence along the Ohio river 
had been broken. The Indians who had been their 
allies sought the favor of the English. And George 
Washington had completed the military training 
which was to fit him to become the successful 
leader in the eight years' struggle of the people of 
the American colonies for independence. 

He resigned his commission and hastened to 
Virginia. Six weeks later — on the 6th of January, 
1759 — he married Martha Custis, a widow, who 
was the fortunate possessor of a hundred thousand 
dollars. He was elected to the House of Burgesses, 



IN PENNSYLVANIA 155 



and for the next fifteen years, in the quiet and re- 
tirement of Mount Vernon, lived a barren and 
uneventful life, with no ambition save the pleasure 
of accumulation ; no exhilaration greater than the 
chase of the fox, and no anxiety except for the care 
of his herds of cattle. How bare and barren the 
life was can be seen from these extracts, showing 
with what his thoughts were occupied, covering a 
month in his manuscript journal for 1767: 

" July : 

" 14 — Finish'd my wheat Harvest. 

" 16 — began to cut my Timothy Meadow, which had 
stood too long. 

"25 — finish'd Ditto. 

" 25 — Sowed turnep seed from Colonel Fairfax's, in 
sheep pens, at the House. 

" 25 — Sowed Winter do. from Colo. Lee's, in the neck. 

" 27 — began to sow wheat at the Mill with the early 
white Wheat, w'ch grew at Muddyhole. 

" 28 — began to sow wheat at Muddyhole with the 
mixed wheat that grew there; also began to sow wheat at 
Doag Run, of the red chaff, from home; also sowed sum- 
mer Turnep below Garden. 

" 29 — Sowed Colonel Fairfax's kind in flax ground 
joining sheep pens." 

A new epoch dawned, and again George Wash- 
ington came to Pennsylvania. A crisis big with 



156 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

fatality and freighted with the hopes of the future 
was approaching. The Stamp Act had been passed, 
and after a storm of reprobation had been repealed ; 
non-importation resolutions had been promulgated 
from the Pennsylvania State-House, soon to be 
known as Independence Hall, ringing with a bell 
which is only torn from it by sacrilege ; John Dick- 
inson had written those Farmer's Letters wherein 
was expounded the creed of the colonies; the tea 
ships had been driven from the Delaware river, and 
an act of Parliament had closed the port of Boston, 
when the first congress was called to meet in Car- 
penters' Hall, on Chestnut street below Fourth, in 
the city of Philadelphia, on September 5, 1774. 
Washington appeared as a delegate. What part he 
bore in its deliberation it is difficult to tell. But he 
wrote to a friend upon the subject of independence: 
" I am well satisfied that no such thing is desired 
by any thinking man in all North America." It 
was a time of stirring events and rapid movements, 
but men held fast to the old moorings so long as 
they could. A few months later the muskets began 
to rattle at Lexington, and on the 15 th of June, 
1775, the second continental congress, to which 



IN PENNSYLVANIA 157 

he was a delegate, assembled in the State-House. 
One of their lirst acts was to determine "that a 
general be appointed to command all the conti- 
nental forces raised or to be raised in the defense of 
American liberty," and by a unanimous vote, in 
that famed Pennsylvania hall, the heaviest responsi- 
bility which had ever fallen to the lot of an Amer- 
ican was imposed upon George Washington. The 
next day, in the same place, declaring, " I feel great 
distress from a consciousness that my abilities and 
military experience may not be equal to the extensive 
and important trust," and that *' no pecuniary com- 
pensation could have tempted me to accept this 
arduous employment," declining the sum which 
had been fixed for his salary, with modest words 
and with a serious sense of the difficulties he was 
about to encounter, he assumed that responsibility 
and started forth, like Moses of old, to lead his 
people through the Red Sea of war and the wilder- 
ness of uncertainty and suffering. Unlike the 
prophet and law-giver of Israel, and unlike his 
own prototype, William of Orange, he was destined 
not only to see from afar, but to enter into the land 
of promise and safety. The war upon which he 



158 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

then embarked was to endure through eight weary 
years. Philadelphia was then not only the chief 
city of the colonies, the centre of science, art, 
literature, and population, but the seat of the revo- 
lutionary government and the place where the 
continental congresses held their sessions. It was 
believed by the revolutionists that the retention of 
the possession of the city was essential to the suc- 
cess of their cause. The royalists believed that if 
it could be captured the war would be speedily ter- 
minated and the rebellion end in an early dissolution. 
A few opening and indecisive contests of arms oc- 
curred in Massachusetts; but the struggle ere long 
drifted to the shores of the Delaware, and the con- 
tinental army never thereafter was further east than 
the Hudson. In the course of the war nine battles 
were fought by the army under the personal com- 
mand of Washington, and with the exception ot 
Long Island, which was an unrelieved disaster, and 
Yorktown, where it was uncertain whether the 
laurels ought to cluster about the French fleet or 
the American land forces, all of them — Trenton, 
Princeton, Brandywine, Warren Tavern, German- 
town, White Marsh, and Monmouth — were conflicts 



IN PENNSYLVANIA 159 

the purpose of which was to control or defend, to 
secure or retain, the city of Philadelphia. 

At Brandywine there was presented to him the 
great opportunity of his military career when the 
enemy, of their own motion, brought about the 
situation which it was the object of the tactics ot 
Napoleon to secure, and divided their forces in front 
of him. At Warren Tavern his plans were thwarted 
and his opportunities and advantages lost through 
what the lawyer calls the act of God. At Trenton 
and Germantown he displayed not only the courage 
and resolution bred in his Saxon fibre, but that other 
quality, more often found in the Celt, ^'■faudace, 
toujour s Taudacey At White Marsh he boldly ap- 
proached to within a few miles of the enemy, who 
then held the city, defeated attacks upon his right, 
left, and centre, compelling Howe to withdraw dis- 
comfited, and won, though with small loss, his 
greatest tactical success. The issues of the Revolu- 
tionary War were determined, however, not by the 
effective handling of large armies with consummate 
skill; not by the exercise of that military genius 
which enabled a Marlborough, a Frederick, or a 
Bonaparte to see just when and where to strike to 



i6o GEORGE WASHINGTON 



the best advantage, but by that tireless tenacity of 
purpose which, through success or disaster, never 
flagged, and, whatever fate might have in store, 
refused to be overcome. All the poets who have 
sung their verse, all the historians who have written 
their books, whatever students may have investi- 
gated, and whatever orators may have spoken agree 
in the conclusion that such tenacitv was best exem- 
plified at the close of a lost campaign, with a weak- 
ened and dwindling army, through the sufferings ot 
a severe winter upon the hills of Valley Forge. 
Wherever the story is read, wherever the tale is 
told, the pluck and persistence amid misfortune and 
disheartening want exhibited at this Pennsylvania 
hamlet along the banks of the Schuylkill have come 
to be the type and symbol of the Revolutionary 
War and to represent the supreme effort and the 
unconquerable fortitude of the American soldier. 

In a German almanac printed in the town of 
Lancaster in the latter part of the year 1778 Wash- 
ington was first called "the Father of his Country." 
It was at once a truthful and a prophetic designa- 
tion, in accord with passing and coming events, and 
soon accepted by all of the people. At the close of 



IN PENNSYLVANIA i6i 

the war he returned to Mount Vernon, to his ne- 
groes, corn, wheat, and tobacco ; to his horses and 
his hounds, — the latter a present from Lafayette; — 
again became, in the language of the Rev. Thomas 
Coke, " quite the plain country gentleman," and, if 
we may rely upon the journal of John Hunter, he 
"sent the bottle about pretty freely after dinner" 
and "got quite merry." 

The war would have been an utter failure if it 
had only resulted in the severance of the ties which 
connected us with Great Britain and if it had left 
the colonies discordant, jealous, and each pursuing 
its own selfish interests, under the ineffective gov- 
ernment established by the Articles of Confedera- 
tion. The work of destruction had been successful 
and complete, but the constructive and more diffi- 
cult task of welding the discordant elements into a 
vital and effective organism remained. All of the 
South American states succeeded in throwing off the 
control of Spain, and even Hayti became independ- 
ent ; but what gift to mankind has come of it ? 
Upon the sea of human affairs a nation was to be 
launched, with the prospect of large proportions 
and unlimited growth, and again George Washington 



i62 GEORGE WASHINGTON 



came to Pennsylvania. In the definite movement 
leading up to the formation of the government of 
the United States of America, as we know it to-day, 
no New England state had any participation. Dele- 
gates from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
Delaware, and Virginia met at Annapolis, in the 
state of Maryland, on the i ith of September, 1786, 
and, after consultation, urged the necessity of a re- 
vision of the existing system, and recommended the 
calling of a convention, with sufficient power, to 
meet in Philadelphia on the second Monday of May 
in 1787. Emerson has well said that "all martyr- 
doms looked mean when they were suffered," and 
that ** when the gods come among men they are 
not known." He might have added that the im- 
portance of the supreme events in the advancement 
of the human race has seldom been recognized by 
contemporaries. Even Shakespeare died without 
any conception of what he had achieved and with- 
out any foretaste of his future fame. At the State- 
House, on May 14, 1787, at the opening of the 
convention, delegates appeared only from Virginia 
and Pennsylvania. Eleven days later Washington 
was elected to preside by the votes of these states 



IN PENNSYLVANIA 163 

and those of Delaware and New Jersey, and at the 
end of two weeks no others were yet represented. 
What the members kept steadily in view throughout 
all of their deliberations, according to Washington, 
was "the consolidation of our Union." Of how 
they succeeded the world has no need to be told. 
From that box, drawn, as it were, by unwitting fish- 
ermen out of the sea of uncertainties and perplexi- 
ties, came forth a genie whose stride is from ocean 
to ocean; whose locks, shaken upon one side by 
Eurus, on the other by Zephyr, darken the skies; 
and whose voice is heard in far Cathay and beyond 
Ultima Thule. There was difficulty about the 
adoption of the constitution. Opposition was man- 
ifested everywhere ; on the part of men like Patrick 
Henry, of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry, of Massa- 
chusetts, it was decided, and in some instances in- 
tense. One of the New England states held aloof 
for three years. But in three months — on the ist 
of January, 1788 — Washington was able to write, 
"Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey have al- 
ready decided in its favor." After the voice of this 
state had been heard and its great influence had been 
exerted the result was no longer doubtful, and he 



i64 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

cheerfully continued, "There is the greatest pros- 
pect of its being adopted by the people." 

After having been elected president of the na- 
tion he had done so much to create, he spent the 
whole of his two terms^ with the exception of a 
year in New York, in the city of Philadelphia. 
For ten years this patriotic city, without compensa- 
tion of any kind, furnished a home to the govern- 
ment of the United States. The building at the 
southeast corner of Sixth and Chestnut streets was 
given up to the use of the Senate and House, and 
became Congress Hall. The Supreme court met in 
the building at the southwest corner of Fifth and 
Chestnut streets. For seven years Washington lived 
in a large double brick building on the south side 
of Market street, sixty feet east of Sixth, which had 
been the headquarters of Howe. To the east was 
a yard with shade-trees, and along the front of this 
yard ran a brick wall seven feet high. Next door 
to him dwelt a hairdresser. All of the important 
events of his administration — the establishment of 
the Mint; the wars conducted by St. Clair, Har- 
mer, and Wayne against the Indians; the Whiskey 
Insurrection, which took him through Carlisle 



IN PENNSTLVANIA 165 



again to Western Pennsylvania, after a long absence ; 
the troubles over Genet and Jay's treaty with Great 
Britain — occurred during his residence here. He 
had a pew in Christ Church. He became a mem- 
ber of the American Philosophical Society, and was 
present at its services upon the deaths of Benjamin 
Franklin and David Rittenhouse. He attended the 
theatre in Southwark, seeing the play, "The Young 
Quaker; or, the Fair Philadelphian," and Rickett's 
Circus, and he took part in the dancing assemblies. 
He and Governor Mifflin saw the Frenchman 
Blanchard make the first balloon ascension in Amer- 
ica, January 9, 1793, amid much tumult and eclat. 
Blanchard was described as ** Impavidus sortem non 
timet Icariamy The magistrates of the city gave 
him the use of the court-yard of the prison, and 
the roar of artillery announced to the people the 
moment of departure. Washington placed in his 
hands a passport which, with a pleasing uncertainty 
befitting the occasion, was directed "to all to whom 
these presents shall come," and authorized him "to 
pass in such direction and to descend in such place 
as circumstances may render most convenient." He 
started at nine minutes after ten, on a clear morn- 



i66 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

ing ; sailed over the Delaware and frightened a flock 
of pigeons and a Jersey farmer near Gloucester, 
where he landed. He prevailed upon the latter to 
come to his help by the offer of one of the six 
bottles of wine with which Dr. Caspar Wistar had 
provided him. Jonathan Penrose, Robert Wharton, 
and six other Philadelphians chased after him on 
horseback and escorted him back to the President, 
to whom he presented his respects and colors. 

Washington had sixteen stalls in his stable, 
generally full, and was a hard driver, upon one oc- 
casion foundering five horses. He wore false teeth, 
in part carved from the tusk of a hippopotamus. 
The Stuart portrait, which has come in time to be 
the accepted delineation of his features, was painted 
at the southeast corner of Fifth and Chestnut 
streets. Every Tuesday he gave levees, and on New 
Year's Day served punch and cake. Once he 
picked the sugar-plums from the cake and sent them 
to " Master John," later in life to be famous as the 
Old Man Eloquent. When James Wilson, justice 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, opened 
the law school of this university and, in the true 
sense, began legal education in this country, Dccem- 



IN PENNSTLVANIJ 167 

ber 15, 1790, it was in the presence of George and 
Martha Washington. One hundred and ten years 
ago to-day, at the hour of noon, — aye, this very 
hour, — the faculty of the University of Pennsylva- 
nia, in company with the heads of department, the 
members of the congress, and the governor of the 
commonwealth, in person offered their congratula- 
tions. He had a green parchment pocket-book ; he 
kept it in a hair trunk, and he tied his keys together 
with a twine string. In this city he wrote his fare- 
well address, and here he was described as "first 
in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his 
countrymen." He left Philadelphia March 9, 1797, 
and less than three years later he was dead. 

The cloth is woven. The story is told. Through 
no accident was it brought about that Washington, 
though he was born and died in Virginia, spent in 
such great part his military and official life in this 
state. The cause was like that which took Napo- 
leon from Ajaccio to Paris, Shakespeare from Strat- 
ford to London, and Franklin from Boston to 
Philadelphia. "Every ship," wrote Emerson, "is a 
romantic object except that we sail in." Self-respect 
is a saving grace in the state as well as in the indi- 



i68 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

vidual. Patriotism, like charity and all the other 
virtues, begins at the hearth-stone. When the Shun- 
ammite woman was urged to come to the court of 
Solomon, her answer was, " I dwell among mine 
own people." After the earliest of the great and 
good men of the Aryan race, he whom we call 
Cyrus, five centuries and a half before Christ, had 
overcome all of his enemies and had founded the 
most extensive empire the world had known up to 
that time, he inscribed over the gateway of his pal- 
ace only the simple words, " I am Kurush the King, 
the Akhasmenian." There is need of more of that 
spirit in Pennsylvania. We too lightly forget our 
achievements; we are too ready to desert our heroes; 
we are too willing to leave our rulers unsupported; 
we read with too little indignation the uncanny and 
untrue tales told by our rivals elsewhere and re- 
peated and reprinted by the unfaithful at home. 
Of all existing agencies this institution of learning, 
with its host of alumni and students devoted to it, 
to its interests, and to the commonwealth, appears 
to be doing the most effective service in the way of 
cultivating a more correct tone and a more elevated 
sentiment. To a great extent the future hope of 



IN PENNSTLVANIA 169 

the commonwealth depends upon you, young men 
of the university, and upon your efforts. Go forth, 
then, to fill your chosen spheres. Let it not be 
said of you, as was said of one of the lord chancel- 
lors of England, that if he had known a little 
about law he would have known a little about 
everything. Be earnest and thorough. If your 
field be the law, follow the example and study the 
work of Gibson and Sharswood. If it be medicine, 
you have before you the careers and the labors of 
Rush, Gross, Agnew, and Pepper. If it be science, 
to whom can you turn with more confidence than 
to Rittenhouse, Leidy, Audubon, and Cope? If 
you wish to store your minds with the facts of the 
past, read the histories of Lea and McMaster; and 
if you need mental relaxation, you will find no 
romance more worthy of your attention than ** Nick 
of the Woods," "The Story of Kennett," ''The 
Wagoner of the Alleghenies," and " Hugh Wynne." 
As you go along through life, sing with emotion 
your song of "The Pennsylvania Girl," and shout 
with vigor your 

"'Rah, 'rah, 'rah, 
Pennsylvania!" 



I70 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

that all may not only hear, but learn to appreciate 
and to admire. Benjamin West, of Delaware 
county, when he became president of the Royal 
Academy, reached the highest position which could 
then be attained by any artist. In his " Death of 
Wolfe" he overthrew the conventions and revolu- 
tionized the methods of his profession. It is not 
too much to assert that in his " Penn's Treaty with 
the Indians " he fastened upon the attention of 
mankind the most distinctive event in the early his- 
tory of the colonies. See to it that amid the fads 
of modern art he is not belittled and discarded. 
Your soldier, George Gordon Meade, not only won 
the most important battle of recent times, but in 
doing so he determined the destinies of the nation 
and influenced human affairs for all the ages to come. 
Cherish and extend his fame as your precious heri- 
tage. On brass, marble, and granite preserve the 
memory of his deeds. Give due praise to the ac- 
complishment of others, but do not overlook the 
worth and achievements of the earnest men who 
have gone from your own doorsteps. Scorn all 
cant, falsehood, and sensationalism. And when by 
zeal and application you have secured in life the 



IN PENNSYLVANIA 171 



rewards for which you have striven, do not forget 
how much of your success is due to the training 
and discipline conferred upon you by your vener- 
able and honored alma mater^ the University of 
Pennsylvania, and to the example of the long line 
of distinguished men who in the past have been 
the recipients of her benefits and been nurtured at 
her bosom. 



PENNSYLVANIA AND 
MASSACHUSETTS 

[A reply to an anonymous attack upon Pennsylvania, published by the 
Atlantic Month/y m October, 1901.] 



I 



T is extremely difficult to regard with any se- 
riousness the article which appeared in the 
Atlantic Monthly for October, 1901, upon the 
" Ills of Pennsylvania." 

Among the cases tried in my court a situation 
so frequently recurs that in its main features it has 
become entirely familiar, and with the first state- 
ment of the preliminary facts the sequel is at once 
forecasted. A well-meaning and kindly old gentle- 
man, whose vigor and intelligence a quarter of a 
century before won for him a comfortable subsist- 
ence in his declining years, but who is approaching 
that period of advanced maturity when the im- 
pressions of names and faces and characters are 
becoming indistinct, is addressed by a glib and en- 
tertaining stranger who assumes the reputable name 



PENNSYLVANIA AND MASSACHUSETTS 173 

of some good friend and talks with an assured air 
of known persons and events. The interview ends 
in loss to the confiding person both of substance and 
reputation. 

There were ample indications in the article itself 
to have put the Atlatitic Monthly upon its guard. Its 
appearance at a time coincident with an approach- 
ing election, and the desire of the writer to escape 
identification by keeping his name concealed, are 
facts that ought in themselves to have given warn- 
ing to the alert. His evidence in the shape of 
mythical interviews with unidentified farmers, who 
speak in an unknown dialect, his fling at those who 
are descended from the men who fought in the 
Revolutionary War, his manifest delight in the 
hanging of the Quakers upon Boston Common, his 
affectation of regret at the injury to the financial 
reputation of a state which has no debt, borrows no 
money, and pays each year $6,000,000.00 for schools 
and ^2,000,000.00 for charities, his corrupt Eng- 
lish and pat "Augean Stables," his description of 
himself through the guise of a convenient but 
unnamed friend as "Godly purity," sufficiently 
showed that he assumed a garb which did not 



174 PENNSYLVANIA 

belong to him, and was narrating as facts mate- 
rial gathered for a purpose, and which could only 
lead to inquiry when presented by some respon- 
sible person. His article is absolutely discreditable 
and unworthy. 

(Its presentation in a magazine of good repute, 
which was once a leader in thought, and is still 
read by many excellent people in Pennsylvania, 
about which linger the memories of departed 
worthies whom they revere, is another matter, sand 
it is with that aspect of the subject it is proposed to 
deal. When there are published to the world the 
untruths "that Philadelphia is the arch hypocrite of 
cities," and that Pennsylvania is a "state of weak 
moral fibre," the inquiry, made in all seriousness, is 
provoked whether there is not a touch of hardihood 
in suggesting that " Massachusetts and Pennsylvania 
persistently invite comparison." The assumption of 
superior virtue and achievement is not without pre- 
cedent. Cotton Mather, while inciting the hanging 
of witches and Quakers; John Adams, and John 
Quincy Adams, in their letters and journals, have 
been illustrious predecessors, and the Massachusetts 
law of October 14, 1656, says: "There is a cursed 



AND MASSACHUSETTS 175 

sect of heretics lately risen up in the world which 
are commonly called Quakers." Perhaps it may 
not be uninstructive to examine the foundation 
upon which the claim rests. 

Massachusetts was settled in 1620, Pennsyl- 
vania in 1682, and in a race of less than three 
centuries, a start of sixty-two years is a long lead. 
Boston is located upon the sea, with a magnificent 
harbor adapted for all kinds of commerce, while 
Philadelphia lies a hundred miles from the mouth 
of the Delaware. Each census shows that Massa- 
chusetts is steadily falling in rank among the states, 
and Boston among the cities, and that Pennsylvania, 
which, at the time of the Revolution, was third in 
population, is surely approaching the first place. *\ It 
is manifest that either better government or greater 
opportunities for remuneration for effort, or some 
equally potent cause, has from the beginning led 
men to find Pennsylvania more attractive, and this 
conclusion is emphasized when we give attention to 
the obvious fact that while few Pennsylvanians can 

* Massachusetts, which stood second under the census of 1790, was 
fifth under the census of 1890, and under the recent census of 1900 takes 
rank as seventh and below Texas. Pennsylvania, which was third in 1790, 
being below Virginia and Massachusetts, was second in 1890 and 1900. 



176 PENNSYLVANIA 

ever be persuaded to emigrate to Massachusetts, 
there has been since the time of Penn a steady cur- 
rent of people who were willing to forego the 
advantages, civil or otherwise, of Massachusetts, in 
order that they might improve their condition and 
ours by coming here. A school was established in 
Philadelphia in 1683. There was no school in 
Plymouth for twenty years after the settlement. 
The free library of James Logan, the medical 
school of the University of Pennsylvania, the law 
school of the University of Pennsylvania, the Penn- 
sylvania Hospital, the American Philosophical Soci- 
ety, the Academy of the Fine Arts, and Peale's 
Museum are all examples of institutions successfully 
established here before any similar attempts were 
made in Boston. The English Bible and Testa- 
ment, Milton, Shakespeare, and Blackstone were all 
reproduced for the first time in America in Phila- 
\ adelphia, and it is an interesting indication of keen- 

ness of literary perception that the earliest book 
written by Thackeray to be given to the world first 
appeared in the same city. 

The constitution of the United States pro- 
vides for the free exercise of religion and against 



AND MASSACHUSETTS 177 



the establishment of any creed by law. Perhaps 
no other of its provisions more distinctly marks the 
divergence between the American idea of the prov- 
ince of government and that of European nations, 
and more broadly separates the present from the 
past. Where in America did that view of life 
originate, and when it became a part of the funda- 
mental law, which community triumphed and which 
succumbed? Penn in his frame of government de- 
clared that government was " as capable of kindness, 
goodness and charity as a more private society," and 
he invited to his province people of all creeds. 
Massachusetts, founded as a theocracy from which 
all who dissented from the established beliefs were 
expelled, in accepting the principle since embodied 
in the constitution, abandoned her own ideals and 
adopted the doctrines inculcated and practiced in 
Pennsylvania. 

After the organization of the national govern- 
ment the gravest peril which threatened its integrity 
and existence was the growth of the institution of 
slavery. The first American colonizer and lawgiver 
to appreciate the immorality and disadvantages of 
that system, and eternal fame ought to be accorded 



lyS PENNSYLVANIA 

to him, therefore, was Peter Cornelius Plockhoy, who 
announced in 1662 that in his colony on the Dela- 
ware no slavery should exist. Then came the 
celebrated Germantown protest of 1688. These 
announcements occurred in a period when the 
people of Massachusetts were not only dealing in 
negro slaves but were selling Indians and even con- 
victed Quakers in the Barbados.* The Society of 
Friends soon threw the whole weight of their influ- 
ence against the institution, preventing their mem- 
bers from holding slaves, and at that time they 
were still in control of the province of Pennsylvania. 
The earliest abolition society in the world was organ- 
ized in Philadelphia in 1774, called "The Pennsyl- 
vania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery," 
and among its members in 1789 were Noah Webster 
and Thomas Gain of Massachusetts, who even yet 
could find at home no outlet for their sentiments. 
When the memorial of this society, supported by 
one from the Friends' annual meeting, asking for 
the discouragement of the slave trade and of traffic 

* The order of the Massachusetts Court, May ii, 1659, concerning 
Daniel and Provided Southwick, empowered the treasurer "to sell the said 
persons to any of the English nation at Virginia and Barbados." 

Hazard's Annals, Vol. 2, p. 163. 



AND MASSACHUSETTS i-j^ 

in slaves, was presented to the House of Represent- 
atives in 1790, it received the support of every 
member from Pennsylvania and the opposition of 
Fisher Ames, Jonathan Grout and George Thatcher, 
one-half of the Massachusetts delegation.* 

Said Benjamin Rush, writing in 1784: "It is 
scarcely forty years since a few men in Pennsylvania, 
who were branded as enthusiasts, first bore testimony 
against the slavery of the negroes. These principles 
spread gradually and in the course of a few years 
were adopted as part of the system of doctrines 
of the people called Quakers. From them and by 
their industry they have been propagated by natural 
means through all the middle and eastern states of 
America. Pennsylvania has done homage to them 
in her sovereign and legislative capacity. The 
slaves of the southern states feel a pleasure when 
the name of Pennsylvania sounds in their ears, and 
even the native African has learned to except our 
state from the execrations he pronounces against 
Christian tyrants and man thieves. "f 

* Journal of the House. New York, 1790, p. 62. 

f Considerations upon the present Test Law of Pennsylvania. Phila- 
delphia, 1784, p. 20, 



i8o PENNSYLVANIA 

On March i, 1780, the Legislature of Pennsyl- 
vania passed the first American act definitely abolish- 
ing slavery. It was through the efforts of Anthony 
Benezet that England was induced to abolish the 
slave trade. In 1794 there were enough abolition 
societies throughout the states of the country to 
justify a national organization, and delegates from 
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
Delaware and Maryland met in convention in 
Philadelphia for the purpose. They assembled in 
the same city thereafter annually. While ere long 
Rhode Island, Virginia and Tennessee appear, there 
is no trace of representation from Massachusetts as 
late as 1823. When William Lloyd Garrison estab- 
lished the Liberator in Boston in 1831, the anti- 
slavery views of the Quakers of Pennsylvania had 
permeated the whole country, and in every border 
county of that state stations on the underground 
railroad were engaged, not in sounding proclamations, 
but in seeing to it that escaped slaves were provided 
with means to reach the St. Lawrence. 

The principle upon which the Revolutionary 
war was fought to a successful conclusion, that the 
colonies "cannot be legally taxed but by their own 



AND MASSACHUSETTS i8i 

representatives," was thought out and put in concrete 
form by John Dickinson in his " Letters from a 
Farmer in Pennsylvania to the inhabitants of the 
British Colonies," a book read with avidity all over 
America and reproduced in Europe. It aroused the 
colonies to resistance and enabled them to justify 
their efforts to themselves and before the world. 
He was given the freedom of the city of Boston, 
and Nathaniel Ames, in his almanac for 1772, pub- 
lished his portrait, one of the earliest rude attempts 
at American portraiture, with the legend " The 
patriotic American farmer, John Dickinson, Esq., 
Barrister-at-law, who, with attic eloquence and 
Roman spirit, hath asserted the liberties of the 
British Colonies in America." 

On October 16, 1773, the people of Philadel- 
phia met in the State House yard and adopted a 
series of resolutions* drawn by William Bradford, 
forbidding the landing of tea from the British ships. 
These resolutions were forwarded to Boston, where- 
upon a town meeting was called there on November 

* See the Resolutions in Etting's Old State House. Pages 67, 68. 

The Boston resolutions say : *♦ The sense of this town cannot be 
better expressed than in the words of certain judicious resolves lately entered 
into by our worthy brethren, the citizens of Philadelphia." 



i82 PENNSYLVANIA 

5th, and they were re-adopted in the same language. 
This action led to the famous Boston Tea Party. 

The turning point of the war was reached in 
the successes at Trenton and Princeton. Before 
those events our fortunes were at the lowest ebb. 
In his oration on Washington, David Ramsay, the 
contemporary historian, says: "The few that re- 
mained with General Washington scarcely exceeded 
three thousand and they were in a most forlorn con- 
dition, without tents or blankets or any untcnsils to 
dress their provisions. ... In this period when the 
American army was relinquishing their general, the 
people giving up the cause, some of their leaders 
going over to the enemy, and the British com- 
manders succeeding in every enterprise. General 
Washington did not despair. He slowly retreated 
before the advancing foe and determined to fall back 
to Pennsylvania, to Augusta County in Virginia, 
and if necessary to yonder mountains, where he 
was resolved in the last extremity to renew the 
struggle for the independency of his country. While 
his unconquered mind was brooding on these ideas, 
fifteen hundred of the Pennsylvania Militia joined 
him." In this crisis, when others faltered and were 



AND MASSACHUSETTS 183 

in despair and Washington thought of retreating be- 
yond the Alleghenies to engage in guerilla warfare, 
which colony was it that sent a reinforcement equal 
to one-half of the army and enabled him to win 
his victories? 

Would it be unkind to suggest that the difference 
in the characteristics of the people of Massachusetts 
and Pennsylvania is well exemplified in the compar- 
ison of the affairs at Bunker Hill and Stony Point? 
In the former engagement a Massachusetts general 
selected an elevation and protected himself by 
intrenchments. The British landed at the foot of 
the hill, marched up, drove the Americans from the 
field and captured and held the intrenchments. 
Since that time historians have written and poets 
have sung, a huge monument was erected and 
Daniel Webster delivered an oration, until almost if 
not altogether we are persuaded that in some way 
which we do not understand we must have won the 
battle. It is substantially the only one ever fought 
in Massachusetts and is cherished ex necessitate. At 
Stony Point six hundred British troops occupied a 
crest one hundred and fifty feet high elaborately 
fortified. In addition two abattis defended the hill 



i84 PENNSYLVANIA 

and at the foot were a picket and a moat. Anthony 
Wayne with fourteen hundred men crossed the moat, 
tore down the abattis, stormed the fortifications and 
captured the garrison. He was hit on the head and 
thought to be killed, and of the twenty-one men in 
the forlorn hope, led by Lieutenant James Gibbons, 
of Philadelphia, seventeen were shot. Though then 
universally regarded as the most brilliant feat ot 
arms of the war, there has been little vaunting about 
it since. 

The final success of the war was due to the 
fact that France came to our assistance, and the 
friendship of that country was largely the result 
of the impression made on the minds of the French- 
men by Penn's "Holy Experiment." Even Voltaire 
at one time expressed a wish to emigrate to Pennsyl- 
vania, and the treaty which was never signed and 
never broken had caught the fancy and met the 
approval of all Europe. I have an autograph letter 
written in 1 8 3 1 by Albert Gallatin, formerly secre- 
tary of the treasury, in which he says : " Pennsyl- 
vania the first example, the first experiment, which 
demonstrated that a community may remain under 
the influence of deep religious feeling without any 



AND MASSACHUSETTS 185 

compulsory law whatever on the subject of religion 
and all denominations live in perfect harmony. 
This, hailed by all the friends of liberty, appealed to 
by all as a decisive proof, had given the highest 
character to Pennsylvania, though only a colony, 
and was one of the principal, if not the main cause 
of the great popularity of America during her 
revolutionary contest." 

In the war of 1 8 1 2, when our independence of 
British control was finally assured, Pennsylvania fur- 
nished the commander of the army of Niagara, the 
then popular hero, Major General Jacob Brown, 
and if the contemporary authority of John Binns can 
be depended upon, a greater number of troops than 
any other state. Her naval record was unsurpassed, 
if equalled. The attitude of Massachusetts toward 
that war, owing to the fact that it injuriously affected 
her commercial interests, cannot be excused and can 
only be condoned and forgotten. She refused finan- 
cial aid, she declined to respond to the call of the 
president for her quota of militia, and the convention 
at Hartford first broached the pernicious doctrine 
of secession, so fruitful in the production of future 
ills to the republic. The president in his message 



i86 PENNSYLVANIA 



described Massachusetts and Connecticut as being in 
insurrection, and Josiah Quincy, Abijah Bigelow, 
and thirty-two other members of Congress published 
a pamphlet, soon reproduced in London for the 
comfort of the enemy, in which they in effect con- 
tended for the right of the English to take seamen 
from our vessels, and used this thinly-veiled threat 
of destruction to the union: "A form of govern- 
ment, in no small degree experimental, composed of 
powerful and independent sovereignties, associated 
in relations some of which are critical as well as 
novel, should not be precipitated into situations cal- 
culated to put to trial the strength of the moral 
bond by which they are united."* 

A president of the United States once felt it to 
be his duty to inform Congress that a secret agent 

* An address of members of the House of Representatives of the 
Congress of the United States to their constituents on the subject of the war 
with Great Britain. London, 1812. 

In it the writers assert : ** The claim of Great Britain to the services 
of her seamen is neither novel nor peculiar. The doctrine of allegiance for 
which she contends is common to all the governments of Europe." P. 14. 

Calhoun and Jefferson Davis contended for no more than that the states 
were "independent" and that the bond uniting them was only "moral" 
and not legal. 

Of the thirty-four signers of this remarkable paper seven were from 
Massachusetts, eight from Connecticut, the whole delegation, one from New 



AND MASSACHUSETTS 187 

of the foe "was employed in certain States, more 
especially at the seat of government of Massachu- 
setts, in fomenting disaffection to the constituted 
authorities of the nation, and in intrigues with the 
disaffected, for the purpose of bringing about resist- 
ance to the laws, and eventually, in concert with a 
British force, of destroying the Union and forming 
the eastern part thereof into a political connection 
with Great Britain." 

At half-past four o'clock on the morning of 
April 12, 1 86 1, the rebels opened fire upon Fort 
Sumter, in Charleston harbor. Before the sun 
went down that day Pennsylvania had appropriated 
five hundred thousand dollars with which to arm 
the state.* This first step in the war upon the part 
of the north, quick as a flash, three days before the 
call by the president for troops, followed by New 
York on the i 5th, and the other states later, is one 
of those momentous and overpowering events that 

Hampshire, one from Vermont, two from Rhode Island, four from New 
York, one from Delaware, three from Maryland, four from Virginia, and 
two from North Carolina. I regret to say that one of the eighteen 
representatives from Pennsylvania, James Milnor, is found among them, but 
he was not returned to the next Congress. 

* Tribune Almanac for 1862, p. 42. Acts of Assembly. 



PENNSYLVANIA 



determine the fate of nations, to be remembered 
with the crossing of the Rubicon and the dinner of 
the Beggars of the Sea. Three days after the call 
for troops five companies from Pennsylvania, the 
van of that mighty host which during the succeed- 
ing four years were to follow, arrived in Washington. 
The next day the Seventh Pennsylvania and the 
Sixth Massachusetts shed the first blood in the 
streets of Baltimore. Within four days after the 
defeat at Bull Run seventeen thousand Pennsyl- 
vanians, armed, equipped and disciplined, were in 
Washington to save the city from capture. No 
other state had an entire division in the army, and 
all of them were below her in the percentage of 
those killed in battle. Simon Cameron was secre- 
tary of war at the beginning of the struggle and 
Edwin M. Stanton at its close. Pennsylvania had 
forty-eight general officers in the war and fourteen 
commanders of armies and corps: Meade, McClel- 
lan, Hancock, Reynolds, Humphreys, Birney, Gib- 
bon, Park, Naglee, Smith, Cadwalader, Crawford, 
Heintzelman and Franklin. Two of them com- 
manded the Army of the Potomac, that army upon 
which the fortunes of the war depended. It was 



AND MASSACHUSETTS 189 

neither Grant nor Sherman nor Thomas who fought 
the battle that determined the issue of the contest, 
but George G. Meade, upon the Pennsylvania field 
of Gettysburg. Will some one tell us what great 
captain or what significant event in this most fate- 
ful of American crises is to be credited to Massa- 
chusetts ? 

In the late war with Spain there came as a 
result that American principles and institutions are 
no longer to be confined to this continent, but are 
to become the heritage of other peoples in other 
lands. Is it in Boston or in Philadelphia that or- 
ganizations were created whose object was to thwart 
the purposes of the government? 

Robert Morris managed the finances of the 
Revolution, Stephen Girard those of the war o± 
181 2, and Jay Cooke those of the Rebellion. The 
" Pennsylvania idea," wrought out by Mathew Carey 
and Henry C. Carey, adopted by Henry Clay and 
William McKinley, has dominated American poli- 
tics since the origin of the government. 

Pennsylvania has no ills that are worthy of 
mention. Her six millions of people, twice those 
of Holland and three times those of Massachusetts, 



I90 PENNSYLVANIA 

are happy, prosperous and contented, and they are 
less taxed and get more in return than their neigh- 
bors. There may be an occasional wanderer among 
them who thinks the Berkshire Hills are higher 
than the Allegheny Mountains, that the deserted 
wharves of Salem are more attractive than the ship- 
yards of Kensington, and that Benjamin F. Butler, 
who with true home spirit wrote a book about him- 
self, was a more skillful soldier than Hancock or 
■■^ Humphreys, but the vagaries of the human mind 
are often unexplainable. Cramp is still building 
the navies of the world, and Baldwin is still con- 
structing its locomotives. Henry C. Lea and Mc- 
Master are writing histories, Furness is annotating 
Shakespeare and Dr. S. Weir Mitchell is writing 
novels. Leidy, Cope and Brinton, Agnew, Gross 
and Pepper have just left us, and Hare, the most 
famous of contemporary American jurists, is still 
alive. There is a university or college in almost 
every county, and the work of Lehigh, Swarthmore, 
Bryn Mawr, and the University of Pennsylvania, the 
last of which has opened up a new field of learning 
in the far east, invites comparison with that of any 
similar institution in America or Europe. 



AND MASSACHUSETTS 191 

The anonymous purveyor of articles, though 
both ignorant and maUcious, was nevertheless cor- 
rect in his statement that here respect is accorded 
to inherited good character, and it is a significant 
illustration of the conservation of ruling forces that 
the present mayor of Philadelphia is a member of 
one of the oldest Quaker families in the state, which 
sent George Ashbridge to the Assembly from Ches- 
ter county, from 1730 to 1770, the longest period 
of service in that body, and that the great-grand- 
father of Pennsylvania's most distinguished states- 
man was a major in Wayne's Chester county regi- 
ment in the Revolutionary war. There has been 
some commotion in public affairs in Pennsylvania 
since 1895, but it is neither deep-seated nor import- 
ant, and does not call for invidious comment. In 
the existing complications of mundane affairs the 
power of accumulated money is very great. It sways 
alike marts, magazines and newspapers and fills 
pulpits. It leads nations to look on complacently 
while the people of the republics of South Africa 
are being murdered for their possessions. The 
United States Senate has in recent years sometimes 
been flippantly called the Millionaires' Club. The 



w 



192 PENNSYLVANIA 

fate which has befallen some other commonwealths 
was tendered to Pennsylvania. It was proposed, 
and the proposition was supported by some well- 
meaning persons, that the highest representative 
office in that state where the declaration of in- 
dependence was adopted, the constitution of the 
United States was framed, and the Battle of Gettys- 
burg was won, should be handed over to an enter- 
prising and successful merchant, not because of 
training in statecraft and public service, but as a 
reward for commercial prosperity, like a bale of 
cotton goods to be secured in the market for a 
consideration. The attempt was made in the wrong 
state, among the wrong people, and it failed. 
Little inquiry is needed to ascertain why men in 
Pennsylvania are attached to Mr. Quay and proud 
of his accomplishment. It is not for me to express 
an opinion concerning his political methods or prin- 
ciples, but about his personal characteristics it is 
permitted me to speak. No man, whatever may be 
his intelligence, can be regarded as having reached 
greatness who, when tested in a crisis pregnant 
with the vital interests of humanity, fails to compre- 
hend the situation, or, understanding it, fails to act 



AND MASSACHUSETTS 193 



in accordance with his convictions. When Daniel 
Webster, charged with responsibility and confronted 
with the dangers arising from the growth of the 
slave power, knew no other device than to compro- 
mise with the iniquity and entail war on the next 
generation, he may not have earned the designation 
of Ichabod given him by Whittier, but he certainly 
indicated that he did not belong in the front rank of 
statesmen. The tide of mighty events surged on- 
ward, seeking a Lincoln and a Meade, and leaving 
to him such fame as may be due to oratorical utter- 
ance. Mr. Quay is a plain, simple, modest and 
kindly man, with a taste for books and literature, 
with no propensity for the acquisition of riches, and 
with a genius for the organization and control of 
men in masses, such as, like the gift of Shakespeare, 
comes but once in centuries. Without prating about 
honesty, he has this essential of the highest integrity 
that he meets every obligation and keeps his every 
word. He has a courage which never flinches, 
whether in war or politics. He fails in no duty and 
he is never beaten. He has permanently influenced 
the destinies of the American people, since it was 
due to his individual capacity and effort that Mr. 



194 PENNSYLVANIA AND MASSACHUSETTS 

Harrison was elected to the presidency and the 
Republican party restored to control, that the Force 
Bill was prevented from becoming a law, and in 
large measure, that the McKinley Tariff Bill was 
enacted. During the last twenty years no Repub- 
lican president could have been elected without his 
consent, and no national policy successful without 
his support. Helpful, sagacious and strong, a knightly 
and picturesque figure, whether riding in the van at 
Fredericksburg, thwarting the wiles of Tammany, 
or routing the combination of corporations in Penn- 
sylvania, his fame is assured as a statesman who 
deserves well of his country, and in whose achieve- 
ments even Massachusetts may properly take a pride. 



GERMAN IMMIGRATION 

[An address at the Bi-Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of 
Germantown, Pa., and the Beginning of German Immigration to America, in 
the Philadelphia Academy of Music, on the evening of October 6th, 1883.] 

THE Teutonic races since the overthrow of 
the power of ancient Rome, which they 
brought about, have been in the van of 
thought and achievement. The only rivals of the 
German and the Dutchman, in those things which 
mark broadly the pathway of human advancement, 
came from the same household. In the sixth cent- 
ury a tribe of Germans found their way across the 
North Sea to an island which in time they made 
their own, and to which they gave the name of 
Angleland. Like all of their stock, the men of 
this colony grew in substance and developed in in- 
telligence, but they have ever since, in times of trial 
and difficulty, looked back to the fatherland for 
guidance and support. In 1471 a man named 
Caxton was in Cologne learning the art of printing. 



196 GERMAN IMMIGRATION 

He returned to England to impart to his country- 
men a knowledge of the new discovery, and the 
literature of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Scott and Dick- 
ens became a possibility. The impulse which 
Martin Luther gave to human thought, when he 
nailed his propositions to the church door at Wit- 
tenberg, beat along the shores of the Atlantic, and 
the revolution of 1688, bringing with it the liberty 
of Englishmen, was one of the results. For the at- 
tainment of that liberty England drove her own royal 
line beyond the seas and made the Stadtholder of 
Holland her king. From his day down to the present 
time every king of England has been a German. 

Early in the seventeenth century an English 
admiral went to Rotterdam for a wife. According 
to Pepys, who described her later, she was " a well- 
looked, fat, short old Dutch woman, but one that 
hath been heretofore pretty handsome, and, I believe, 
hath more wit than her husband." The son of this 
woman was the Quaker, William Penn. He who 
would know the causes for the settlement of Penn- 
sylvania, the purest, and in that it gave the best 
promise of what the future was to unfold, the most 
fateful of the American colonics, must go to the 



GERMAN IMMIGRATION 197 

Reformation to seek them. The time has come 
when men look back through WilHam Penn and 
George Fox to their masters, Menno Simons, the 
reformer of the Netherlands ; Caspar Schwenckfeld, 
the nobleman of Silesia, and Jacob Boehm, the in- 
spired shoemaker of Gbrlitz. In that great upheaval 
of the sixteenth century there were leaders who re- 
fused to stop where Luther, Calvin and Zuinglius 
took a successful stand. The strong, controlling 
thought which underlay their teachings was that 
there should be no exercise of force in religion. 
The baptism of an infant was a compulsory method 
of bringing it into the church, and they rejected 
the doctrine. An oath was a means of compelling 
the conscience, and they refused to swear. Warfare 
was a violent interference with the rights of others, 
and they would take part in no wars even for the 
purposes of self-protection. More than all, in its 
political significance and effect, with keen insight 
and clear view, hoping for themselves what the 
centuries since have given to us, they for the first 
time taught that the injunctions of Christ were one 
thing and the power of man another, that the 
might of the state should have nothing to do with 



198 GERMAN IMMIGRATION 

the creed of the church, and that every man in 
matters of faith should be left to his own convic- 
tions. Their doctrines, mingled, as must be admitted, 
with some delusions, spread like wild-fire through- 
out Europe, and their followers could be found from 
the mountains of Switzerland to the dikes of Hol- 
land. They were the forlorn hope of the ages, and, 
coming into direct conflict with the interests of 
church and state, they were crushed by the concen- 
trated power of both. 

There is nothing in the history of Christendom 
like the suffering to which they were subjected, in 
respect to its extent and severity. The fumes from 
their burning bodies went up into the air from every 
city and village along the Rhine. The stories of 
their lives were told by their enemies, and the pages 
of history were freighted with the records of their 
alleged misdeeds. The name of Anabaptist, which 
was given them, was made a byword and reproach, 
and we shrink from it with a sense of only half-for- 
gotten terror even to-day. The English representa- 
tives of this movement were the Quakers. Picart, 
after telling that some of the Anabaptists fled to 
England to spread their doctrines there, says : *' The 



GERMAN IMMIGRATION 199 



Quakers owe their rise to these Anabaptists."* The 
doctrine of the inner light was an assertion that every 
man has within himself a test of truth upon which he 
may rely, and was in itself an attack upon the bind- 
ing character of authority. The seed from the 
sowings of Menno, wafted across from the Rhine to 
the Thames, were planted on English soil by George 
Fox, and were brought by William Penn to Pennsyl- 
vania, where no man has ever been molested because 
of his religious convictions. Three times did William 
Penn, impelled by a sympathetic nearness of faith and 
methods, go over to Holland and Germany to hold 
friendly converse and discussion with these people, 
and it was very fitting that when he had established 
his province in the wilds of America he should urge 
and prevail with them to cross the ocean to him. 

On this day, two hundred years ago, thirty- 
three of them, men, women and children, landed in 
Philadelphia. The settlement of Germantown has 
a higher import, then, than that thirteen families 
founded new homes, and that a new burgh, destined 

* Picart was here cited because he makes the statement directly and in 
few words. Upon this subject consult Barclay's Religious Societies of the 
Commonwealth, Hortensius' Histoire des Anabaptistes, and Pennsylvania 
Magazine, Vol. IV., p. 4. 



200 GERMAN IMMIGRATION 

to fame though it was, was builded on the face of 
the earth. It has a wider significance, even, than 
that here was the beginning of that immense immi- 
gration of Germans who have since flocked to these 
shores. Those thirteen men, humble as they may 
have been individually, and unimportant as may have 
been the personal events of their lives, holding as 
as they did opinions which were banned in Europe, 
and which only the fullness of time could justify, 
standing as they did on what was then the outer 
picket line of civilization, best represented the mean- 
ing of the colonization of Pennsylvania and the 
principles which lie at the foundation of her insti- 
tutions. Better far than the Pilgrims who landed 
at Plymouth, better even than the Quakers who 
established a city of brotherly love, they stood for 
that spirit of universal toleration which found no 
abiding place save in America. Their feet were 
planted directly upon that path which leads from 
the darkness of the middle ages down to the light 
of the nineteenth century, from the oppressions of 
the past to the freedom of the present. Bullinger, 
the great reviler of the Anabaptists, in detailing in 
1560 their many heresies, says they taught that "the 



GERMAN IMMIGRATION 201 

government shall and may not assume control of 
questions of religion or faith."* No such attack upon 
the established order of things had ever been made 
before, and the potentates were wild in their wrath. 
Menno went from place to place with a reward 
upon his head, men were put to death for giving 
him shelter, and two hundred and twenty-nine of 
his followers were burned and beheaded in one city 
alone. But, two centuries after Bullinger wrote, 
there was put into the constitution of Pennsylvania, 
in almost identical language : " No human author- 
ity can, in any case whatever, control or interfere 
with the right of conscience." The fruitage is here, 
but the planting and watering were along the Rhine. 
And to-day the Mennonites and their descendants 
are to be found from the Delaware river to the 
Columbia. The Schwenckfelders, hunted out of 
Europe in 1734, still meet upon the Skippack on 
the 24th of every September, to give thanks unto 
the Lord for their deliverance. This is the tale which 
Lensen, Kunders, Lucken, Tyson, Opdengraeff and 
the rest, as they sat down to weave their cloth and 

* " Die Oberkeit soelle und moege sich der Religion oder Glaubens 
sachen nijt annemmen." Der Widertoufferen Ursprung, p. i8. 



202 GERMAN IMMIGRATION 

tend their vines in the woods of Germantown, had 
to tell to the world. A great poet has sung their 
story, and you Germans will do well to keep the 
memory of it green for all time to come. 

It cannot be gainsaid that the influence upon 
American life and institutions of that German immi- 
gration which began with thirty-three persons in 
1683 and had swollen in 1882 to 250,630, has ful- 
filled the promise given by its auspicious commence- 
ment. The Quakers maintained control of their pro- 
vince down to the time of the Revolution, and they 
were enabled to do it by the support of the Germans. 
The dread with which the Germans inspired the 
politicians of the colonial days was excessive. In 
1727 James Logan wrote to the proprietary: "You 
will soon have a German colony here, and, perhaps, 
such a one as Britain once received from Saxony in 
ye fifth century." Said Thomas Graeme to Thomas 
Penn in a letter in 1750, "The Dutch, by their 
numbers and industry, will soon become masters ot 
the province." Many were the devices to weaken 
them. It was proposed to establish schools among 
them where only English should be taught, to 
invalidate all German deeds, to suppress all German 



GERMAN IMMIGRATION 203 

printing presses and the importation of German 
books, and to offer rewards for intermarriages. 
Samuel Purviance wrote to Colonel James Burd in 
1765 that the way to do was "to let it be spread 
abroad through the country that your party intend 
to come well-armed to the election, . . . and that 
you will thrash the sheriff, every inspector, Quaker 
and mennonist to a jelly." But, as a disappointed 
manager wrote from Kingsessing the same year, **all 
in vain was our labour, . . . Our party at the last 
election have loosed all." 

The speaker of the first federal House of Re- 
presentatives was a German, and with Simon Snyder, 
in I 808, began the regime of the eight German gov- 
ernors of Pennsylvania. To represent her military 
renown during the Revolutionary War, Pennsylvania 
has put the statue of Muhlenberg in the capitol at 
Washington. The terrific and bloody struggle with 
slavery in this country, which ended at Appomattox 
in 1865, began at Germantown so long ago as 1688. 
The Murat of the Rebellion, he who afterwards so 
sadly lost his life among the savages ol the wxst, 
had traced his lineage to the Mennonite, Paul Kuster, 
of Germantown, and if the records were accessible, 



204 GERMAN IMMIGRATION 

it could, it may be, be carried still further back to 
that Peter Kuster who was beheaded at Saardam in 
1535. Another of the descendants of those earliest 
immigrants, the youngest general of the war, planted 
his victorious flag upon the ramparts of Fort Fisher. 
The Schwenckfelder forefathers of Hartranft, major- 
general, governor, and once urged by this state for 
the presidency, lie buried along the Perkiomen. 
He who reads the annals of the war will find that 
among those who did the most effective work were 
Albright, Beaver, Dahlgrcn, Heintzelman, Hoffman, 
Rosecrans, Steinwehr, Schurz, Sigel, Weitzel and 
Wistar. 

The liberties of the press in America were 
established in the trial of John Peter Zenger. 
Man never knew the distance of the sun and stars 
until David Rittenhouse, of Germantown, made his 
observations in 1769.* The oldest publishing house 
now existing on this continent w^as started by Sauer, 
in Germantown, in 1738. The first paper mill was 
built by Rittinghuysen upon the Wissahickon creek, 
in i690.t The German Bible antedates the English 

* He was born in Roxborough Township near Germantown. 
J It was on a branch of the Wissahickon. 



GERMAN IMMIGRATIION 205 

Bible in America by nearly forty years, and the 
largest book published in the colonies came from 
the Ephrata press in 1749. From Pastorius, the en- 
thusiast, of highest culture and gentlest blood, down 
to Seidensticker, who made him known to us, the 
Germans have been conspicuous for learning. To 
the labors of the Moravian missionaries, Zeisberger 
and Heckewelder, we largely owe what knowledge 
we possess of Indian history and philology. Samuel 
Cunard, a descendant of Thones Kunders in the fifth 
generation, established the first line of ocean steamers 
between America and England and was made a 
British baronet. 

If you would see the work of the American 
Germans of to-day look about you. Is there a 
scientist of more extended reputation than Leidy? Is 
there a more eminent surgeon than Gross ? Who de- 
signed your Centennial buildings, and in whose hands 
did you trust the moneys to pay for them? The 
president of your university, the most enterprising 
of American merchants, and the chief justice of 
your state are alike of German descent. The great 
bridge just completed after years of labor and im- 
mense expenditures, which ties Brooklyn to New 



2o6 GERMAN IMMIGRATION 

York, was built by a German. The financier of 
the nation during the Rebellion undertook to con- 
struct a railroad from the greatest of the inland seas 
to the widest of the oceans. He fell beneath the 
weight of the task. A German completed it. 

But the time allotted to me does not perrqit me 
to more than suggest a few points in the broad out- 
lines of German achievement. The hammer of 
Thor, which, at the dawn of history, smote upon 
the Himalayas, now resounds from the Alleghenies 
to the Cascades. The Germanic tide, which then be- 
gan to pour into Europe, has now reached the Pacific. 
In its great march, covering twenty centuries of 
time, it has met with no obstacle which it has not 
overcome, it has been opposed by no force which it 
has not overthrown, and it has entered no field 
which it has not made more fruitful. America will 
have no different story to tell. The future cannot 
belie the past. Manners and institutions change, 
the rock crumbles into dust, the shore disappears 
into the sea, but there is nothing more permanent 
than the characteristics of a race. Already the 
rigidity and angularity which Puritanism has im- 
pressed upon this country have begun to disappear; 



GERMAN IMMIGRATION 207 

already we feel the results of a broader scope, a 
sterner purpose and of more persistent labor. And 
in the years yet to be, America will have greater 
gifts to offer unto the generations of men, will be 
better able to attaint that destiny which, in the 
providence of God, she is to fulfill, because she has 
taken unto herself the outpourings of that people 
which neither the legions of Caesar, nor papal power, 
nor the genius of a Bonaparte were able to subdue. 



THE CAPTURE OF 
STONY POINT* 

[Oration delivered upon the request of the State of New York at 
the Dedication of the State Park at Stony Point, July i6, 1902.] 

EACH year of the war of the Revolution, the 
struggle of the colonies for independence and 
for the establishment of a nationality that 
should present to the world a new and permanent 
system of government, was marked by some event 
which may be regarded as distinctive and represent- 
ative of the campaign and the time. In 1775 the 
contest was begun by the farmers with their shot- 
guns and rifles behind the stone walls running along 
the road from Concord to Lexington. In 1776 the 
tide of disaster and depression was turned, and the 
hope of final success dawned at Trenton. In 1777 
there was victory over the army of Burgoyne in 

* In the preparation of this paper I have been much indebted to Daw- 
son's "Assault upon Stony Point," and to Johnston's <* Storming of Stony 
Point," but I have differed from both of these authors in assigning the credit 
for the plan which was adopted. 



THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 209 

your own beautiful valley of the Hudson, and there 
were valor and tenacity shown in the attack upon the 
main army of the British at Germantown. In 1778 
were displayed the sufferings and the persistence 
at Valley Forge. In 1780 were begun the success- 
ful campaigns of Greene in the south. In 1781 the 
surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown led to the 
practical cessation of hostilities. 

The important event of 1779, the central year 
of the war, was of a character to catch and forever 
hold the attention of mankind, one which the state 
of New York has even now recognized by the 
opening of this attractive park. We are here to 
commemorate that event and to tell it over again, 
though with meagre and inadequate words. 

The main purpose of the campaign of 1779, 
upon the part of Clinton, who was in command of 
the British forces, was to break, and upon the part 
of Washington to maintain, the lines of communi- 
cation between the eastern states and those to the 
southward by means of the occupation of the valley 
of the Hudson. The most important position upon 
the strongest of these lines was West Point, fortified 
in such a way as to render it almost impregnable. 



2IO THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 

and held by the centre of the American army under 
General McDougall. The American right, under 
command of Putnam, lay near Dean Furnace, and 
the left, under command of Heath, was on the op- 
posite side of the Hudson, extending eastward from 
the Sugar Loaf hill. Into this position it had been 
drawn by Clinton's seizure in May of King's Ferry 
and its termini. Stony Point and Verplanck's Point. 
West Point was regarded as the key to the Ameri- 
can continent. To gain possession of it by force 
the British had sent the army of Burgoyne in the 
year preceding, and in an attempt to accomplish the 
same end by the persuasive influence of money and 
rank, offered to the unfaithful Arnold, were to send 
Andre to his death in the year to follow. It was 
held fast in the clutch of Washington with an army 
of about nine thousand men. 

Fearing that his grasp could not be loosened 
by any direct effort that might be made, and hoping 
to tempt him to come down and deliver battle in 
the open plain, Clinton sent a force, under Tryon, 
into Connecticut to devastate and lay waste the 
towns and farmsteads, and there they burned two 
hundred and forty dwellings, seven churches, and 



THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 211 

caused a general destruction of farms, mills, stores, 
and vessels. Fairfield and Norwalk suffered the 
most severely. 

These depredations and this diversion of a por- 
tion of the army of Clinton failed utterly to 
persuade Washington to leave the security of the 
hills, but he made response in a way v^^hich was as 
unexpected to the foeman as it was unsatisfactory. 
Thirteen miles below West Point, upon opposite 
sides of the river, are the promontories of Stony 
Point and Verplanck's Point, and between them ran 
the ferry which constituted a link in what was the 
shortest and most effective line of communication 
between the eastern and southern colonies. Since 
the beginning of June they had been in the occu- 
pation of the British, and now Washington deter- 
mined to make an effort for the capture of both of 
these important positions. As to one of them, his 
plans resulted in an entire and remarkable success 
which has seldom been equalled in the annals of 
warfare, and gave to American arms a reputation 
such as earlier achievements had never been able to 
win for them. 

Stony Point was a rugged promontory, covered 



212 THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 

with rock and wood, extending into the river for 
half a mile from the western shore line, and rising 
to a height of one hundred and fifty feet. It stood 
like a solitary sentinel, ever keeping watch and ward 
over the gateway of the Highlands. Bending 
around its western base and separating it from the 
mainland, a marsh sometimes to the depth of two 
feet crept from an entrance in the river to the north 
to an outlet in the river to the south. An island 
fortress, likened often in its strength and conforma- 
tion to Gibraltar, it seemed to present insurmount- 
able obstacles to any attacking force, and with quiet 
and sardonic frown to threaten its destruction. 
Upon the summit the British had erected a series 
of redoubts and had placed seven or eight discon- 
nected batteries, while immediately below them an 
abatis extended the entire length of the crest. 
Within this fortification were four companies of the 
Seventeenth regiment of infantry, one company of 
American tories, and a detachment of the royal 
artillery. About one-third of the way down the 
hill from the summit ran a second line of abatis 
supported by three redoubts, on which were brass 
twelve-pound cannon, defended by two companies 



THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 213 

of the Seventeenth regiment and two companies of 
grenadiers. At the foot of the hill near the morass 
were five pickets, and the British vessels of war 
which rode in the river were able to sweep with 
their guns the low ground of the approaches. Four 
brass and four iron cannon, one howitzer and five 
mortars, amply supplied with ammunition, were at 
the service of the garrison, which consisted of over 
six hundred of the best disciplined and most trust- 
worthy troops in the British army, under the com- 
mand of Colonel Henry Johnson, of the Seven- 
teenth regiment, a young and gallant officer. 

This formidable fortification so manned and 
protected it was proposed to capture, not by slow 
approaches or the modern convenient method of 
turning, but by storm. Could the Continental 
troops which had been driven from Bunker Hill, 
Long Island, Brandywine, and Germantown, be 
relied upon for such an unprecedented and heroic 
effort ? 

The hope of success depended upon the secrecy 
of the preparations, upon the courage and morale 
of the troops, and above all upon the character of 
their commander and his capacity to take advantage 



214 THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 

of every opportunity which might be presented. 
For this purpose the wise chieftain at the head of 
the American army selected Anthony Wayne, a 
Pennsylvania brigadier, thirty-four years of age, 
whose soldierly qualities indicated a rare blending 
of keen intelligence and impetuous courage, and 
who had won a distinction at Brandy wine, German- 
town, and Monmouth which his defeat at Paoli, 
due to the wide separation by his superior of the 
wings of the army, had failed to tarnish. He was 
destined later to add to that high reputation by 
numerous campaigns in the south, and to gain un- 
perishable renown when, as general in command of 
the armies of the United States, he broke the power 
of the savages of the west where others had failed, 
and secured that seat of future empire for civiliza- 
tion. His sword was always drawn from the 
scabbard, its edge was always turned towards the 
foe, and in the councils of war it had come to be 
known that the voice of Wayne was ever in favor 
of taking the risks of battle. His force was se- 
lected from the light infantry, the brawniest and 
pluckiest material in the Continental army, welded 
into shape and tempered by the experience of four 



THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 215 

years of warfare. It consisted of four regiments of 
three hundred and forty men each, the first com- 
posed of troops from Virginia and Pennsylvania, 
under Colonel Christian Febiger, of the blood of 
the old Norsemen ; the second of troops from Penn- 
sylvania, Maryland and Delaware, under Colonel 
Richard Butler, one of the most efficient officers of 
the Pennsylvania Line; the third of troops from 
Connecticut, under Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs, 
from that state, who had won laurels and gained 
experience at Quebec; and the fourth of troops 
from Massachusetts and North Carolina, under 
Colonel Rufus Putnam, of Massachusetts, who had 
seen hard service at Saratoga. 

Every feasible effi^rt to secure accurate informa- 
tion had been made. Light-Horse Harry Lee, with 
his partisan legion, had patrolled the whole country 
and picked up stray facts from farmers and deserters. 
Allen McLane had gone to the post with a flag of 
truce and kept his eyes open while there. Rufus 
Putnam, the chief engineer, had made a careful sur- 
vey from the vantage ground of the neighboring 
hills, and by the 6th of July both Washington and 
Wayne had made personal tours of inspection. 



21 6 THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 

"When all the doors were fastened. 
And all the windows shut, 
There was yet one little window. 
And that one was forgot." 

From a deserter it was learned that the Point 
could be approached from the southward along a 
beach of sand where the marsh reached the river, 
and here Washington suggested the advance should be 
made. On the i oth he wrote a letter to Wayne con- 
taining his views of a plan for the assault, and even 
elaborating such details as the putting of a white 
feather upon the cap of each man, but he left the re- 
sponsibility for its acceptance with Wayne, saying, — 

"These are my general ideas of the plan for a 
surprise; but you are at liberty to depart from them 
in every instance where you think they may be im- 
proved or changed for the better." 

It appears that for some reason a delay had 
been proposed and that Wayne was eager to make the 
attempt at once, because Washington again wrote, on 
the 14th, giving his permission for the following 
night, and adding, "You are at liberty to choose 
between the different plans on which we have 
conversed." 



THE CAPTURE OF STONl" POINT aiy 

By the next morning at eleven o'clock the ar- 
rangements were completed and the "order of bat- 
tle" prepared. Without hesitation Wayne made a 
fundamental change in the proposed plan. Instead 
of an assault in a single column from the south- 
ward, he ordered that Colonel Febiger form a col- 
umn upon the right, to be preceded by one hundred 
and fifty picked men " with their arms unloaded, 
placing their whole dependence on the bayonet," 
and that Colonel Butler form a column on the left, 
"preceded by one hundred chosen men with fixed 
bayonets" and with arms unloaded. Major Murfree 
was directed to move in the centre and, dividing a 
little to the right and left, await the attack, and 
thereupon keep up a galling fire as a feint. It will 
be observed that this plan involved an apparent 
frontal attack accompanied by the noise of musketry, 
and that the real attack should be made by the 
silent columns. Any soldier who presumed to take 
his musket from his shoulder or attempted to fire 
without orders was instantly to be put to death. 
Any soldier so lost to a sense of honor as to retreat 
a foot or skulk in the presence of danger was like- 
wise immediately to be put to death by the nearest 



21 8 THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 

officer. At the head of each column, sixty feet in 
advance, were to march twenty men and an officer, 
designated as the "forlorn hope," that on the right 
led by Lieutenant Knox, of the Ninth Pennsylvania, 
and that on the left by Lieutenant James Gibbons, of 
the Sixth Pennsylvania. Upon entering the works 
the victorious troops were to shout the watchword, 
"The fort's our own!" Wayne, who was deter- 
mined to share in the danger and participate in the 
glory, as his order declares, concluded to march with 
the right column. 

On the morning of the 1 5th of July the 
troops, thirteen hundred and fifty strong, "fresh 
shaved and well powdered," were drawn up for in- 
spection, and when that ceremonial was completed, 
instead of being dismissed to their quarters, they 
started on the road to the southward. Then for 
the first time officers and men knew that some 
event of more than ordinary moment was in con- 
templation. Over a rough and narrow back road 
dwindling away at times to a mere path, across 
rocky hills and through swamps and ravines, they 
marched thirteen miles, and at eight o'clock in the 
evening arrived at the farm of David Springsteel, 



THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 219 



about a mile and a half to the westward of Stony 
Point. Not a soldier had been permitted to leave 
the ranks, every dog for miles around had been 
killed, and a detachment of the Pennsylvania bat- 
talion, under Captain James Chrystie, and the 
rangers of Allen McLane had meanwhile been 
sweeping the intervening country and gathering into 
their embrace all wandering countrymen who might 
perchance give warning to the garrison. The secret 
had been well kept and neither friend nor foe had 
yet heard a whisper of the coming event. Ere the 
storm burst there was a lull of three hours and a 
half until half-past eleven o'clock at night. 

Picture to yourselves, if you can, you who are 
here one hundred and twenty-three years later to 
participate in this anniversary, the strain and sus- 
pense of that interval. After the columns had been 
formed and the "order of battle" read to them, 
after he had ridden forward for the last time to in- 
spect the approaches, Anthony Wayne, upon whose 
shoulders the responsibility rested, keenly alive to 
the desperate character of the venture, its uncertain- 
ties and the personal danger, sat down "near the 
hours and scene of carnage " at eleven o'clock in 



220 THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 

the old farm-house. Securing a sheet of paper, he 
wrote to a near friend, " This will not reach you until 
the writer is no more. ... I know that friendship 
will induce you to attend to the education of my 
little son and daughter. I fear their tender mother 
will not survive this stroke. ... I am called to sup, 
but where to breakfast either within the enemies' 
lines in triumph or in another world." 

The thought of the strong man, with the 
scythe of the grim reaper flashing before him, was 
of his wife and children in their far-away home 
near the banks of the Brandywine. 

The time had come. By half after twelve 
o'clock the right column had crossed the marsh, 
two hundred yards in width, with water up to the 
waists of the men, but ere they had reached the far 
side the pickets of the enemy opened fire and gave 
the alarm. Without a shot in return, in the face 
of a rapid fire from cannon and muskets, the men, 
led by Fleury and Knox, tore down the abatis and 
pushed forward up the steep. The Connecticut 
officers, Seldon, Phelps, Palmer and Hall, and the 
Pennsylvanian, Hay, were grievously wounded, and 
on every side soldiers were falling; but who could 



THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 221 

halt to minister to them? At the second abatis 
Wayne was shot in the head and brought to the 
ground, but rising to his left knee and pointing to 
the front with his spear, he cried, " Forward, my 
brave fellows; forward!" and later was carried 
bleeding into the fort. The garrison within rushed 
to arms, and Colonel Johnson, the commandant, 
with about half of his force, hastened to the centre 
of the outer line, where he heard the rapid firing 
from Murfree, thus paying tribute to the wisdom of 
that part of the plan. In a few minutes Fleury 
was over the parapet and grasping the British flag, 
and with the honor of being the first within the en- 
trenchments, he shouted, with French accent and 
enthusiasm, "The fort's our own!" Following 
him and each other, and almost at the same instant, 
in rapid succession came Knox, of the "forlorn 
hope;" Sergeant Baker, of Virginia, wounded four 
times ; Sergeant Spencer, of Virginia, wounded two 
times; and Sergeant Donlop, of Pennsylvania, 
wounded two times. 

So well were the arrangements planned and so 
efficiently were they carried out that the two col- 
umns, with different tasks and difficulties, separated 



222 THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 

in space, reached the parapet and entered the fort 
almost at the same time. There has been less detail 
preserved as to the occurrences in the left column, 
but the fact that when Lieutenant Gibbons, of Phil- 
adelphia, first of them all, crossed the parapet, 
seventeen of the twenty-one in the "forlorn hope" 
had been shot, sufficiently attests the desperate char- 
acter of the struggle. Upon all sides now re- 
sounded the cry, "The fort's our own!" 

There were clashing of sword and spear, and 
bayonet thrust; but the British, finding that the 
Americans had surmounted their defences, and 
that further resistance was useless, soon cried for 
mercy. One old captain refused to surrender and 
fell where he stood, fighting to the last. Of the Brit- 
ish, twenty were killed, seventy-eight were wounded, 
fifty-eight were missing, and four hundred and sev- 
enty-two were taken prisoners. Of the victors, 
fifteen were killed and eighty-four were wounded. 

At two o'clock on the morning of the i6th 
Wayne sent a despatch to Washington, informing 
him that "The fort and garrison, with Colonel 
Johnson, are ours. Our officers and men behaved 
like men determined to be free." 



THE CAPl URE OF STONT POINT 223 

Up to this time no event of the war had pro- 
duced such an ardor of enthusiasm in the minds of 
both the army and the people. The newspapers of 
the day teemed with praises of all the participants, 
and poets depicted the details of the affair in their 
most stirring verses. The congress passed resolu- 
tions of thanks and voted gold medals. Washing- 
ton wrote that the officers and men " gloriously 
distinguished themselves," and Greene, himself a 
hero, in earnest words declared, **This is thought 
to be the perfection of discipline and will forever 
immortalize General Wayne, as it would do honor 
to the first general in Europe." Said John Jay, 
later the distinguished chief justice of the United 
States, " This brilliant action adds fresh lustre to our 
arms." And General Charles Lee wrote, " I do 
most sincerely declare that your action in the assault 
of Stony Point is not only the most brilliant, in my 
opinion, through the whole course of this war on 
either side, but that it is one of the most brilliant 
I am acquainted with in history." But even high 
tributes of respect came from the enemy. General 
Pattison, who commanded the British artillery, 
wrote to Lord Townsend in London that the un- 



224 THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 

fortunate event " has filled every one with astonish- 
ment," and Commodore George Collier did not 
hesitate to assert in his journal that " The rebels 
had made the attack with a bravery they never be- 
fore exhibited, and they showed at this moment a 
generosity and clemency which during the course 
of the Rebellion had no parallel." 

After the lapse of a century and a quarter, 
Stony Point yet remains the most conspicuous and 
imposing illustration of American military valor. 
At New Orleans the riflemen of Kentucky and 
Tennessee triumphed over the veterans of Welling- 
ton fresh from the fields of the Peninsula, but they 
stood behind and not in front of entrenchments. 
At Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and Cold Harbor 
there were desperate and sustained charges against 
fortified positions, but in each instance they ended 
in failure. The great Empire State of the Union 
does well to set aside this beautiful park to com- 
memorate the only instance in American history 
where the soldiers of the country were victorious 
over a disciplined European foe, protected by what 
seemed to be impregnable fortifications. She is to 
be commended for her effort again to brighten the 



THE CAPTURE OF STONT POINT 22s 

memory of that remote time in our annals when 
upon her soil the men of Pennsylvania, Virginia, 
Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina, Connecticut, 
and Massachusetts, all wearing the buff and blue of 
the Continental soldier, together faced death as 
they clambered up these steep heights in the defence 
of their own liberties and the maintenance of those 
principles which meant the welfare of the human 
race during the ages that were yet to come. 



THE DUTCH PATROONS 
OF PENNSYLVANIA* 

[Written for the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. 
January, 1907.] 

SINCE the publication of a biography of Hen- 
drick Pannebecker, thirteen years ago, addi- 
tional facts have come to light which give a 
broader significance to his life, and make him a 
more conspicuous, and almost a unique figure in 
the early history of the province of Pennsylvania. 
Research had disclosed that he spoke three languages, 
Dutch, German, and English; that he wrote a con- 
veyancer's hand and drew deeds; that he surveyed 
for the Penns a number of their manors and laid 
out most of the early roads in Philadelphia county; 
that he owned four thousand and twelve acres of 
land; that he possessed a library of books, one of 

* This paper has been prepared mainly from deeds and original docu- 
ments in my own possession, for some of the most important of which I am 
indebted to the thoughtful kindness of Mr. Franklin S. Reiff, of Skippack- 
ville. Pa. 



THE DUTCH PATROONS 227 

which in MS. has recently been secured by the Rev. 
A. Stapleton, and in it a contemporary theologian 
has written, "Henrich Pannebecker habet virtuo- 
sem uxorem ;" that he was described in certain 
recorded instruments as a gentleman, and offended 
Henry Melchior Muhlenberg by his pride and sense 
of "important family connections;" and that he 
was on terms of personal friendship with Edward 
Shippen, Israel Pemberton, Richard Hill, James 
Logan and Isaac Norris. It now appears that he 
became the head of an inland colony, and the pro- 
prietor of an extensive township, since divided into 
two of the present townships of Montgomery 
county, with certain manorial privileges and at least 
a quasi jurisdiction over the people. 

On the loth of March, 1682, William Penn 
conveyed to Dirck Sipman, of Crefeld, five thou- 
sand acres of land in Pennsylvania, and on the iith 
of June, 1683, to Govert Remke, likewise of Cre- 
feld, one thousand acres, upon the condition that a 
certain number of families were to be taken across 
the ocean to settle upon them. The arrangement 
was more than a sale of land, since it contained this 
provision for a settlement, and when Sipman sold 



228 THE DUTCH PJTROONS 

two hundred of his acres, August i6th, 1685, to 
Peter Schumacher, then in Rotterdam on his way 
from Kriegsheim in the Palatinate to Germantown, 
the purchaser agreed for "himself and his family 
to settle upon and dwell on the said two hundred 
acres of land," and to secure compliance he bound 
"his person and all his goods without reservation." 
It is plain from the letter of Pastorius of March 
7th, 1684, that the Dutch and German immigrants 
who founded Germantown expected to receive their 
grant along a navigable stream, to have a little 
province of their own, free from the sway of the 
English, or, as Penn described it, "a new Francken- 
land," and that promises to this effect had been 
made on his behalf by Benjamin Furly, his Rotter- 
dam agent. Of the purchase of Sipman, five hun- 
dred and eighty-eight acres, and of the purchase 
of Remke, one hundred and sixty-one acres were 
located and surveyed in Germantown. By a deed 
in the Dutch language, January 14th, 1686, Remke 
sold his unlocated land to Sipman. By another 
deed in the Dutch language, Sipman sold his entire 
interest, including the lands of Remke, to Matthias 
Van Bebber, a Dutch merchant, who came to Ger- 



OF PENNSYLVANIA 229 



mantown in 1687, son of Jacob Isaacs Van Bebber, 
one of the first Crefeld purchasers. 

The deed was irregular and was confirmed by 
the attorneys of Sipman May 13, 1698. Van Beb- 
ber had the lands located upon the Skippack creek, 
a branch of the Perkiomen and the first stream of 
any importance met in going northwestward after 
leaving the Wissahickon. The tract was supposed 
to contain five thousand acres, but a more accurate 
survey showed that it included six thousand and 
one hundred and sixty-six acres, or nearly ten square 
miles. Van Bebber paid the difference in value to 
Penn, and secured a patent February 22, 1702. It 
was described by rather perishable marks as follows : 

" Beginning at a Hickory Sapling at the corner of Ed- 
ward Lane's land, from thence by a line of marked trees 
northeast one thousand and forty four perches to a stake 
by a white oak marked from thence by a line of marked 
trees northwest nine hundred and eighty eight perches to a 
stake by a marked black oak thence southwest five hundred 
and thirty four perches to a stake in William Harmar's line 
thence by the said line eighty eight perches to a stake again 
by the said William Harmar's land southwest five hundred 
and ten perches to a white oak by the corner of the said Will- 
iam Harmar's land, then southeast by the said Edward 
Lane's land nine hundred perches to the place of beginning." 



230 THE DUTCH PATROONS 

At the time of the issue of the patent the tract 
was already called Bebber's township, and it bore 
that name as late as the publication of Scull's map 
of the province in 1759. It covered substantially 
the same territory as is included within the two 
present townships of Skippack and Perkiomen. 
The patent gave to Van Bebber " all mines, min- 
erals, quarries, meadows, marshes, swamps, cripples, 
savannahs, woods, underwood, timber and trees, 
ways, passages, waters, liberties, profits, commodities 
and appurtenances," the right to " Hawke, Hunt, 
Fish and Fowl," and to hold the lands "in free and 
common socage by fealty only." Van Bebber at 
once began the settlement of his township, and 
since it extended across two considerable streams of 
water, and was further removed from English influ- 
ence, he no doubt believed that it would possess 
advantages over Germantown and prove to be more 
attractive to the Dutch and German incomers who 
had been disappointed in that location. In all 
probability he had had a previous understanding 
with Pannebecker, who, immediately after the 
grant, with his brother-in-law, Johannes Umstat, re- 
moved from Germantown to the Skippack. Other 



OF PENNSYLVANIA 231 

settlers in 1702 were Johannes Kuster, Claus Jansen, 
and Jan Krey. In 1704 came John Jacobs, who 
founded one of the most influential of our colonial 
families. A grandson, Joseph Jacobs, a merchant 
in Philadelphia, was a signer of the non-importation 
resolutions of 1765, and treasurer of the Associa- 
tion library. His brother John was the last 
speaker of the assembly before the Revolution, and 
of him Benjamin Rush reported that he had been 
in favor of a republican form of government for 
twenty years before that time. Another brother, 
Benjamin, was a member of the Philadelphia county 
committee of safety in 1775, and signed some of 
the issues of colonial currency ; a fourth brother, 
Israel, was a member from Pennsylvania of the 
second United States congress; a sister, Elizabeth, 
married Colonel Caleb Parry, killed at Long Island ; 
and a sister Hannah married the famous astronomer 
and mechanician, David Rittenhouse. In 1 706 came 
John Newberry, Thomas Wiseman, Edward Beer, 
Dirck Renberg, William Renberg, together with Ger- 
hard In de HofFen and Herman In de Hoffen (De 
Haven), known of old in the Dutch books of mar- 
tyrology, and whose great tombstones, with their 



2*32 THE DUTCH PATROONS 



ancient inscriptions, give dignity to the Mennonite 
meeting house on the Skippack. They were fol- 
lowed in 1708 by Daniel Desmond, a name evidently 
French in origin, and now converted into Dismant; 
Johannes Scholl, some of whose descendants became 
manufacturers of iron and achieved distinction in the 
wars; Christopher Zimmerman, Hermannus Kuster, 
one of my own forefathers in the sixth generation, 
who is said, with what truth I know not, to hark 
back to Peter Kuster, the martyr, and Lawrence Kos- 
ter, the inventor of printing at Haerlem, and forward 
to General George A. Custer, killed on the plains; 
and by Cornelius Dewees, and William Dewees, 
whose son. Colonel William Dewees, was sheriff of 
the county, and owned a mill at Valley Forge which 
the British burned in 1777. ^^ ^7°9 came Andrew 
Strayer and three brothers from the village of Wolf- 
sheim in the Palatinate; Martin Kolb, long a noted 
Mennonite preacher; Johannes Kolb, who owned a 
Dutch copy of Erasmus; and Jacob Kolb, later 
killed by a cider press; in 171 6 Solomon Dubois, 
from Ulster county. New York; and in 1727 Paul 
Fried. Ere long the settlement on the Skippack 
became known over the continent of Europe. 



OF PENNSYLVANIA 233 

There are many references to it in the Geistliche 
Fama, the Biidingische Sammlung, Fresenius Nach- 
richten, the Hallesche Nachrichten, and similar 
publications. A pamphlet published in Holland in 
1 73 1, giving information concerning " De Colonie 
en Kerke van Pensylvanien " is confined almost ex- 
clusively to affairs on the Skippack. When George 
Whitefield came to America he did not go to the 
Chester valley, or to the Susquehanna, but he did 
preach at Skippack. The Skippack road, laid out 
in 171 3 to the settlement, and a few years later ex- 
tended four miles further to Pennypacker's Mills on 
the Perkiomen, became one of the three main 
thoroughfares to Philadelphia, over which a part of 
Braddock's army marched, going westward in 1755, 
and the continental army marched under Washing- 
ton, going eastward in 1777. 

Van Bebber never lived in his township, but in 
1704 moved from Philadelphia to Bohemia manor, 
Maryland, where he died in 1739, owning a part 
of the manor and many lands, and leaving a large 
family, the later members of which became dis- 
tinguished in the life of Delaware, Maryland, and 
the west. The name has been introduced into 



234 THE DUTCH PJTROONS 

modern literature by Richard Harding Davis. The 
representative of Van Bebber in the settlement and 
the man of affairs among its people, laying out their 
roads, surveying their lands, supervising their real 
estate transactions, drawing their deeds, and taking 
charge of such matters as brought them into rela- 
tions v^^ith the province and other communities was 
Pannebecker. An examination of the deeds which 
have been saved from the maw of time almost in- 
variably shows his participation in the arrangements 
made between the parties, and, in most instances, 
he appears as a witness. In the deed, now in my 
possession, from Van Bebber and Hermana his wife 
to Johannes Fried, April 8, 1724, for one hun- 
dred and twenty-three acres, they describe Panne- 
becker as their attorney with power and authority 
to deliver seisin of the land, and it is altogether 
probable from the absence of Van Bebber, the neces- 
sity for some personal direction of affairs and the 
prompt movement of Pannebecker after the patent 
had been secured, that some such relation had ex- 
isted from the beginning. 

The people of Skippack, June 2, 171 3, pre- 
sented a petition to the county court saying that 



OF PENNSYLVANIA 12S 

"pretty many families are already settled and prob- 
ably not a few more to settle" in that region, but 
that no road had yet been laid out, that "what 
paths have been hitherto used are only upon suf- 
france and liable to be fenced up," and asking that 
a road or cartway be established "from the upper 
end of said Township down to the Wide Marsh or 
Farmer's Mill." Favorable action was taken result- 
ing in the laying out of the Skippack road, the 
surveys for which there is reason to believe Panne- 
becker made. He was one of the signers of the 
petition. 

On the 8th of June, 171 7, Van Bebber and 
his wife, in consideration of "the true love and 
singular affection he the said Matthias Van Bebber 
bears to them and all theirs," conveyed one hundred 
acres of land to Henry Sellen, Claus Jansen, Henry 
Kolb, Martin Kolb, Jacob Kolb, Michael Ziegler 
and Hermannus Kuster, reserving an annual rental 
of one shilling and four pence to hold to them "the 
survivors and survivor of them and to the heirs and 
assigns of the said survivors or survivor for ever" 
upon the trust that " it shall be lawful for all and 
every the inhabitants of the aboves'd Bebbers Town- 



236 THE DUTCH PJTROONS 

ship to build a school house, and fence in a sufficient 
Burying place upon the herein granted one hundred 
acres of land there to have their children and those 
of their respective families taught and instructed, 
and to bury their dead." So far as I know these 
provisions are without precedent in our annals, and 
have never been followed elsewhere. There are 
many instances where men have given lands and 
money for the support of some church, or philan- 
thropic scheme, with which they have been associ- 
ated or in which they were interested, but the recog- 
nition of a duty to provide for the education of all 
of the children of a township and the burial of all of 
the dead, and that for all time, the setting apart of 
so large a domain as one hundred acres for the pur- 
pose, and the expression of his affection for them, 
are not at all characteristic of a mere sale of lands, 
but indicate the patroonship or overlordship of the 
extensive Dutch grants, like that of Van Rensselaer 
at Albany, accompanied by a sense of obligation to 
to see that the needs of the people are anticipated. 
The deed was written by Pastorius and witnessed by 
Pannebecker. Since the two parties and the other 
witness, Isaac Van Bebber, were all then living at 



OF PENNSYLVANIA 237 

Bohemia manor, it is probable that he took the 
deed there to be executed. 

The trust so established led to consequences 
which in one respect at least were more important 
than could have been foreseen. The school was 
conducted by Christopher Dock, " the pious School- 
master on the Skippack," whose memory I some 
years ago revived, and who has since been written 
about by Edward Eggleston and Martin G. Brum- 
baugh, and has become famous ; and it was here, in 
1750, that he wrote the earliest American essay 
upon pedagogy, and in 1764 upon etiquette. 

All of the trustees were members of the Men- 
nonite church, and their selection was due no doubt 
to the fact that the greater number of the settlers 
belonged to that sect, and that the affiliations of 
Van Bebber were with it. Eight years later, March 
30th, 1 725, they, being then all still living, executed 
a declaration of trust, brought about doubtless by the 
determination to build a meeting house, which pur- 
pose was that year accomplished. This declaration 
set forth : 

" Which s'd land & premisses were so as afores'd con- 
vey'd unto us by the direction and appointment of the 



238 THE DUTCH PATROONS 



Inhabitants of Bebberstownship afores'd belonging to the 
meeting of the people Called Menonists (alias Menisten) 
& the above recited deed poll was so made or Intended to 
us in trust to the Intend only that we or such or so many 
of us as shall be & Continue in unity & religious fellow- 
ship with the s'd people & remain members of the s'd 
meeting of the Menonists (alias Menisten) whereunto we 
now do belong should stand and be seized of the s'd land 
& premisses in & by the s'd deed poll granted To the uses 
and intends hereinafter mentioned & declared & under the 
Conditions & provisos & Restrictions hereinafter limitted 
& expressed & to no other use Intend or purpose whatso- 
ever, that is to say For the benifit use and behoof of the 
poor of the s'd people called Menonists (alias Menisten) 
in Bebberstownship afores'd forever And for a place to 
Erect a meeting house for the use & Service of the s'd 
people, & for a place to bury their dead, as also for all & 
every the Inhabitants of the s'd Bebberstownship to build 
a school house & fence in a sufficient burying place upon 
the s'd one hundred acres of land there to have their 
Children & those of their respective families taught & In- 
structed & to bury their dead Provided always that neither 
we nor any of us nor any other person or persons Suc- 
ceeding us in this trust who shall be declared by the mem- 
bers of the s'd meeting for the time being to be out of 
unity with them shall be Capable to Execute this trust 
while we or they shall so remain But that in all such 
cases as also when any of us or others Succeeding us in 
the trust afores'd shall hapen to depart this life then it 
shall & may be lawfuU to & for the members of the s'd 
meeting as often as ocasion shall require to make Choice 



OF PENNSYLVANIA 239 

of others to mannage & execute the s'd trust instead of such 
as shall so fall away or be deceased. And upon this 
further trust & Confidence that we and the Survivor of us 
& the heirs of such survivor should upon the request of 
the members of the s'd meeting either assign over the s'd 
trust or Convey & Settle the s'd one hundred acres of land 
& premises'.to such person or persons as the members of 
the s'd meeting shall order or appoint To & For the uses 
Intends & Services afores'd Now Know Ye that we the s'd 
Henry Sellen, Claus Jansen, Henry Kolb, Martin Kolb, 
Jacob Kolb, Michael Ziegler & Hermanus Kuster do 
hereby acknowledge that we are nominated in the s'd recited 
deed poll by & on the behalf of the s'd people called 
Menonisten (alias Menisten) and that we are therein trusted 
only by & for the members of the s'd meeting and that we 
do not claim to have any right or Intrest in the s'd Land 
and premises or any part thereof to our own use & benifit." 

By this declaration the trustees endeavored, 
while maintaining the original trust of providing 
for the education of the children of all the inhabi- 
tants of the township, and for the burying of their 
dead, to so extend its purposes that the land should 
be held for the benefit of the poor of the Mennon- 
ites, and for the erection of a meeting house for the 
people of that sect, and, on the other hand, to so re- 
strict it that only members in good standing in this 
meeting could act as trustees. They also make the 



240 THE DUTCH PATROONS 

statement that their selection was due to a nomina- 
tion made by the members of the meeting. It is 
plain they were acting under the guidance of some 
one more or less familiar with the forms of convey- 
ancing, but unacquainted with the principles of the 
law. The deed shows the characteristic peculiari- 
ties of the handwriting of Pannebecker. For many 
years Pastorius used a seal with the device of a 
sheep, above which were his initials, " F. D. P." 
He had been dead seven years. His seal, however, 
was used upon this declaration seven times, and like- 
wise upon the deed of Johannes Fried, before re- 
ferred to, in 1724, which indicates that it was at 
that time in the possession of some one living in 
Skippack. It could be no other than Pannebecker, 
and this leads to the query as to whether or not he 
had secured the forms and other paraphernalia of 
Pastorius after the death of the " Pennsylvania Pil- 
grim." The witnesses were Hans George ReifF, a 
member of the German Reformed church, who 
wrote a neat signature, and Antonius Heilman, a 
Lutheran living at the Trappe. Whether this selec- 
tion of witnesses was the result of chance alone, or 
had some purpose, it is impossible to determine. 



OF PENNSYLVANIA 241 

In the deed of 171 7 from Van Bebber there 
was a reservation of an annual rent of one shilling 
and four pence "current silver money of Pensilva- 
nia " to be paid to him and his heirs on the first 
day of each March for ever. It is evident that this 
reservation was not intended in any sense as the con- 
sideration for the conveyance or any part of it. 
The consideration is fully stated. It was customary 
in the proprietary deeds of the time to reserve the 
payment of a modicum of corn, wheat, roses, 
money, or other tangible thing, in recognition of 
the fealty due to the lord of the fee, and in reten- 
tion of the idea of the duty of service which was 
incident to the feudal system. This thought, in- 
sisted upon by Van Bebber, as something owed to 
him and conceded by his purchasers, will be found 
in all of his deeds, and it is further evidence that 
his relation to the people of this settlement was 
considered by him and them to be that of a patroon 
as well as a vendor. It was regarded as so important 
that it was expressed even in a gift to the trustees 
of a charity. On the 17th of June, 1737, two 
years before his death. Van Bebber executed to six 
of the trustees, Jacob Kolb being then dead, a re- 



242 THE DUTCH PATROONS 

lease of his annual rent to the extent of "six pence 
sterling for fifty acres of the within specified or 
mentioned land, the other fifty acres being for the 
use and benefit of the Dutch Baptist Society, being 
excepted, reserved and foreprized together with the 
proportionable part of the yearly Quitrent accruing 
to the Chief Lord of the Fee." This language is 
somewhat obscure, but it shows that the reservation 
was to the lord of the fee, there being likewise a 
quitrent to Penn, the chief lord of the fee. The 
amount was of so little importance that the four 
pence were forgotten entirely. The lands have 
ever since been retained and still belong to the 
Mennonite meeting, so early and well endowed, and 
the venerable place with its important associations 
and hallowed graveyard deserves more attention than 
it has hitherto of recent years received. The Dutch 
Bible used in the meeting house is still in existence. 
By order of the Court of Quarter Sessions of 
Philadelphia County, upon petition of the residents, 
the township was regularly laid out and surveyed in 
1725 and given the name of "Skippack and Per- 
kiomen," and thereafter the earlier name of Bebber 
began to fade and disappear into the distance. The 



OF PENNSYLVANIA 243 

effort was made, under the direction of Pannebecker, 
who secured the signatures to the petition, and gave 
his assistance to those who were unable to write. 
The names attached to the petition are Klas Jansen, 
Johan Umstat, Peter Bon, Henry Pannebecker, 
Hermanns Kuster, Paulus Frid, Johannes van Fos- 
sen, Johannes Friedt, Hans Tetweiller, Jacob 
Scheimer, Paul Friedt, Willem Weirman, Nicholas 
H — st, Henrich Kolb, Martin Kolb, Jacob Kolb, 
Jacob Merckley, Arnold van Fossen, Isaac Dubois, 
Huppert Kassel, John Pawling, John Jacobs, Rich- 
ard Jacob, Michael Ziegler, Christoph Dock, Hans 
Volweiller, Valentin Hunsicker, Richard Gobel, 
Matthias Teissen, Arnold Van Vossen, Jacob Op de 
Graff, George Merckle, Daniel Deesmont, and Peter 
Jansen. 

In the spring of 1728 horrid war raised its 
grisly front almost in the midst of this scene of 
quiet and peace, causing untold agitation throughout 
the settlement, and terror to the inhabitants. 
During the month of April there were repeated 
rumors of threatened attacks by bodies of hostile 
Indians. On the 29th a communication was sent 
to Philadelphia to Governor Patrick Gordon, signed 



244 ^^HE. DUTCH PATROONS 

by a number of people living on what was then the 
frontier, mostly Germans and Welsh, informing 
him "That the Indians are Consulting against us;" 
that the people were so disturbed that "Several 
Families have left their Plantations with what Ef- 
fects they could possibly carry away Women in 
Childbed being forced to Expose themselves to the 
Coldness of ye air whereby their lives are in Dan- 
ger;" and asking him to take such measures with 
respect to the situation that they might be freed 
from these alarms. This warning does not appear 
to have aroused the governor to the necessity for 
action. A few days later eleven Indians in their 
war paint, fully armed, and under the command of a 
"Spanish Indian," appeared only five miles beyond 
the borders of Bebber's township, and, going from 
house to house, compelled the people to supply 
them with victuals and drink. Twenty men gath- 
ered together for defence, some of them armed 
with guns, and some with swords, started in pursuit 
of the Indians, and, overtaking them, sent two of 
their number to parley with the leader. He refused 
to receive the messengers and, raising a sword, or- 
dered his braves to fire. They obeyed, and two of 



OF PENNSYLVANIA 245 

the settlers were wounded. The latter returned the 
fire, the doughty Spanish Indian was hit and fell, 
but arising, "run into the Woods after his Party, 
having left his Gun and Match Coat behind him." 
As was to be expected, the affair was much exag- 
gerated. It was widely reported that there was a 
general uprising of the savages, that this band was 
only the advance guard of the host with which the 
forests were filled, and that already several of the 
German settlers at Tulpehocken and elsewhere had 
been killed. The whole country was aroused, and 
in a state of commotion. The waters of the Skip- 
pack and the Perkiomen seemed to take a tinge of 
red and to murmur of disaster. 

There was living at that time on the east side 
of the easternmost of the three roads which ran 
northwestward from Philadelphia through Philadel- 
phia, now Montgomery county, near where the 
road crossed the Skippack creek, and three or four 
miles further up the stream than Pannebecker, a 
man named John Roberts, who was evidently thrown 
into a state of mental excitement by the stirring 
events occurring around him. On the loth of 
May he wrote a petition to the governor. It is 



246 THE DUTCH PJTROONS 

headed " Van Bebbers Township and ye Adjacencies 
Belonging," and proceeds: 

"We think It fit to address your Excellency for 
Relief for your Excellency must Know That we have Suf- 
ered and Is Like to Sufer By the Ingians they have fell 
upon ye Back Inhabitors about falkner's Swamp & New 
Coshahopin. Therefore We the humble Petitioners With 
our poor Wives and Children Do humbly beg of your 
Excellency To Take It into Consideration and Relieve us 
the Petitioners hereof whos Lives Lies at Stake with us 
and our Poor Wives & Children that Is more to us 
than Life." 

The first signature to the paper is that of John 
Roberts, the second John Pawling, who lived on 
the east bank of the Pcrkiomen about a mile below 
Pennypacker's Mills, and was a warden of St. James's 
Episcopal church, the third Hendrick Pannebecker, 
the fourth William Lane, who gave forty acres of 
glebe land, still retained, to that church, and then 
follow : 

John Jacobs, Isaac Dubois, Israel Morris, Ben- 
jamin Fry, Jacob Op den Graeff, Johannes Scholl, 
Richard Adams, George Poger, Adam Sellen, Diel- 
man Kolb, Martin Kolb, Gabriel Shouler, Anthony 
Halman, John Isaac Klein, Hans Detweiler, Will- 
iam Bitts, Heinrich Ruth, Hupert Kassel, Henry 



OF PENNSYLVANIA 247 

Teutlinger, Christian Weber, Gerhard In de HofFen, 
Lorentz Bingaman, Richard Jacob, Hermannus 
Kuster, Peter Bun, Jacob Engers, Hans Weierman, 
Conrad Custer, Jacob Marieke, Christian Neus- 
wanger, Conrad ReifF, Jacob Kolb, Hans Ulrich 
Bergey, John Myer, Henrich Kolb, John Fried, 
Paul Fried, William Smith, Peter Rambo, David 
Young, Christopher Schmidt, Garrett Clemens, Jo- 
hannes Reichardt, Matthias Tyson, Peter Johnson, 
Hans Joest Heijt, Christian Allebach, Hans ReifF, 
Daniel StaufFer, Abraham Schwartz, Johann Valen- 
tine Kratz, John Johnson, Ulrich HefFelfinger, 
Nicholas Haldeman, Michael Ziegler, Christian 
Stoner, Johannes Garber, John Haldeman, Claus 
Jansen, Nicholas Hicks, Johannes Leisher, Jacob 
Sheimer, Michael Krause, Peter ReifF, George 
ReifF, George Meyer, Bastian Smith, Edward In de 
HofFen, Christian Kroll, Jacob Grater, Jacob 
Stauffer, Henry StaufFer and Paul Fried, Jr.* 

Forty-four of these seventy-seven names were 
written by Roberts himself, and it is probably a 
fairly complete list of the residents at that time. 

* This petition in the Pennsylvania Archives, Vol. I., is given a mis- 
taken heading and misprinted. 



248 THE DUTCH PATROONS 



A man upon horseback rode " with speed " 
into Philadelphia, bearing this pathetic message to 
the governor, who the same day, accompanied by 
Andrew Hamilton and several others, hastened to 
Manatawny, where he remained until the 14th. 
He found the country in very great disorder, many 
of the houses deserted, a number of Germans 
" gathered together at a mill* near New Hanover 
township in order to defend themselves," and a 
man who had been " wounded in the Belly." An 
angry feeling was rife, indicating a purpose to kill 
whatever Indians could be found. He issued a 
commission to John Pawling of Bebber's township, 
Marcus Huling, and Mordecai Lincoln, ancestor of 
the president, authorizing these persons to organize 
the settlers for defence and protection, and he dis- 
tributed some powder and lead among them. The 
hostile Indians were a band of Shawanese on their 
way, as their chief afterward alleged, to aid the 
Delawares in a war with the Flatfeet. Altogether 
five of the settlers and several of the Indians had 

* The only mills then in existence which could possibly have been 
meant were Moyer's, Yelger's, Zimmerman's, Boone's, Maak's, Welker's, 
and Penny packer's, the last then owned by Hans Joest Heijt, and of these 
the first three were in Hanover, and not near it. 



OF PENNSYLVANIA 249 

been wounded more or less seriously, but not- 
withstanding the wild rumors, none were killed. 
It is interesting as the only engagement with the 
savages which ever occurred in the vicinity of 
Philadelphia. 

For twenty-five years, from 1702 to 1727, the 
settlement had grown in size and importance with 
Van Bebber far away at Bohemia manor, and Pan- 
nebecker living on the Skippack, acting as his 
attorney, and representing those interests of the 
community which arose in the course of its grad- 
ual but steady development. Now Van Bebber 
was getting old, the cares of life were becoming 
more of a burden, and a great change, interesting 
to the individuals concerned, and important to the 
settlement, was impending. At that time there was 
living in Pennsylvania a young merchant from 
Holland, a member of the assembly, whose family 
were of theological, literary, and social consequence 
in Europe, named Lodowick Christian Sprogell, 
born at Quedlinburg, July 16, 1683. His father 
was an eminent divine and author who presided 
over the seminary at Quedlinburg ; his mother 
Susanna Margaretta Wagner was the only daughter 



250 THE DUTCH PATROONS 

of the noted composer of music, Michael Wagner ; 
his sister Anna Maria married Godfried Arnold, 
who wrote the most valuable church history of 
his time, still recognized and studied as an author- 
ity ; his brother John Henry Sprogell recovered in 
an ejectment suit against Pastorius the lands of 
Germantown and Manatawny, and brought from 
Berlin miners to mine the first copper found in 
Pennsylvania, and when he was baptized at Qued- 
linburg his sponsors were Herr Jacoby Nicholas, 
the pastor; Anna Maria, Countess of Hesse; and 
Angelica, Princess of Anhalt. Sprogell and Pan- 
nebecker conceived together the great scheme of 
getting control and possession of Bebber's town- 
ship, and their efforts resulted in success. On the 
7th of July, 1727, Van Bebber conveyed to Spro- 
gell alone, though with knowledge that it was in 
the interest of both, " all the remaining part of the 
s'd six thousand one hundred and sixty six acres of 
land which was unsold and not conveyed by the s'd 
Matthias Van Bebber at the date of the s'd Lease 
and Release together with the appurtenances ex- 
cepting one hundred and twenty acres of land in 
the s'd Release reserved". 



OF PENNSYLVANIA 251 

How often the anticipations of men, even 
those which seem to rest on the surest foundations, 
are blighted and come to naught. For Sprogell 
it proved to be a brief ownership and a short season 
of importance. Ere two years had gone by, on the 
5th of June, 1729, he was dead. Another period 
of two years rolled along, and then, November 
17th, 1731, Catharina Sprogell, the widow, and 
John Lodowick Sprogell and Susanna Catharina 
Sprogell, the children, conveyed to Hendrick Pan- 
nebecker of Bebber's township, reciting the deed 
from Van Bebber, "all the Remaining part of the 
s'd Tract of land herein above described which 
now Remains unsold & not Conveyed by the s'd 
Matthias Van Bebber or the s'd Lodwig Christian 
Sprogel excepting the one hundred & twenty acres 
of land in the s'd Release Reserved" and all of 
the interest inherited by them. Neither of these 
two deeds has any reference to the number of 
acres transferred. They conveyed a township sub- 
ject to such rights as had become vested in other 
prior purchasers. The sales which up to that time 
had been made, so far as they have been ascertained 
by my own investigations and those of James Y. 



252 THE DUTCH PATROONS 

Heckler, the local historian who wrote upon the 
subject, were as follows : 

Hendrick Pannebecker . . . 404 acres 

Johannes Umstat 204 ** 

Dirck & William Renberg . . 300 " 
Gerhard & Herman In de HofFen 440 " 

Gerhard Clemens 100 " 

The Mennonite Meeting . . 100 " 

Andrew Schrayer 100 " 

Claus Jansen 306 " 

Daniel Desmond 150 " 

Johannes Kolb 150 " 

Solomon Dubois 500 " 

John Krey 306 " 

Johannes Fried 123 " 

Reserved ........120" 

3303 acres 

As might have been expected, there was some 
friction. Where people have through a long time 
become accustomed to the conditions surrounding 
them radical changes always result in a feeling of 
annoyance. There must have been some contention 
and disturbance, some dissatisfaction with the new 
order of things, some unhappy feeling engendered 
by the new proprietorship, but what it was, and 



OF PENNSYLVANIA iS3 

what was the cause of it, and to what extent it pro- 
ceeded, we do not know and probably never shall 
know. However, nearly a year afterward. Van 
Bebber issued this proclamation to the people: 

"To all Persons in Bebbers Township who have 
bought formerly of me M. Bebber Any Land in s'd Town- 
ship Know Yea That on the 7"" day of July 1727 I sold & 
Convayed unto L. C. Sprogel all the Land that I had Leaft 
unsold at that Time in s'd Township & whereas s'd Land 
was Convayed to s'd Sprogel notwithstanding that all the 
unsold Land was Convayed to s'd Sprogel yet ye True 
Meaning and Agreem' was that Henry Pannebecker was 
to have a Share of s'd Land he paying his Share also of Ye 
Consideration into s'd Van Bebber. Now Know Yea that 
my desire & will is for every of you to Injoy all which I 
Sold & Convayed unto you and No More & that ye Rest 
the Said Henry Pannebeckers May Injoy according his 
Deed of Sprogell's heires having Date ye 7"" of 9 mo Ao. 
1 73 1 & that without Quarling or hinderance. 

Given under my hand the 22"'' 8*" 1732 

M. Bebber." 

Upon the back of this impressive document 
Pannebecker has written "Matthias Van Bebber's 
deseier and will too the peopel." It was folded so 
as to make a long and narrow slip, and the back 
is rubbed and soiled, showing that he carried it 
about with him, probably in a leather wallet, for 



254 THE DUTCH PATROONS 

months, in order that it might be exhibited to all 
interested. Its tone of paternal authority, lingering 
after all rights of property had been abandoned, is 
quite manifest. 

At last Pannebecker had reached the foremost 
position in a movement with which he had been 
connected for thirty years, had become the head of 
a settlement and the sole proprietor of a great 
township. He owned many other acres elsewhere — 
on the branches of the Perkiomen, in Salford, the 
site of the present Harleysville, and in Hanover — 
but none which had the same importance or 
could have given the same satisfaction. He was 
now fifty-eight years of age, and this step may be 
said to have been the culmination of the efforts of 
a life. For some unexplained reason neither Van 
Bebber nor Sprogell had provided for the quitrents 
due to the proprietaries. The account books of 
the Penns show that 4 mo. 20, 1735, Pannebecker 
paid these rents upon "6166 A's Bebber's Township 
33 years in full ^15 5s 3d'" and that six years later. 
May 22, 1 74 1, he paid in full a balance due for 
the intervening period of lo^^ 15s. id. These 
entries make it plain that Pannebecker had assumed 



OF PENNSYLVANIA 2SS 



the relation of Van Bebber toward the township 
along with its responsibilities.* He gave of his 
lands to each of five sons, and they all became mill- 
ers, almost the only occupation in which at that 
early day, in a rural community, capital could be 
invested at a profit. The sale by one of his sons 
of a bushel of "Deer's hair" gives a bit of color 
to the picture. He made surveys for the proprie- 
tors and individuals and trained a grandson named 
for him, Henry Vanderslice, afterwards sheriff of 
Berks county in 1768, to succeed him. He shipped 
flour to Philadelphia to the Penns. His teamster, 
Abraham Yungling, drove to the recently erected 
furnaces and forges in Philadelphia, Chester and 
Berks counties at Colebrookdale, Pine Forge, Pool 
Forge, Warwick Furnace, Coventry Forge, and 
Reading Furnace, and hauled the iron, one ton at a 
time, to the Philadelphia merchants. He drank 
his wine, I am sorry to say occasionally his rum, 
and, according to Muhlenberg, who had been 
frowned upon as a carpet bagger (Neulander), he 
was fond of them. He was engaged in at least five 

* With the first payment Jacob Kolb appears to have had something 
to do. 



256 THE DUTCH PAT ROOMS 



lawsuits. He read his Bible, printed at Heidelberg 
in 1568, and his other books of mystical theology 
and what not, and generously, though unwisely, 
loaned of his store to his neighbors. Another 
quarter of a century rolled away, and one morning, 
the 4th of April, 1754, he fell over dead at the 
ripe old age of eighty years and two weeks, and 
thus fitly ended the career of the last of the Dutch 
patroons in Pennsylvania. 



HIGH WATER MARK OF 
THE BRITISH INVASION 



[Historical address delivered at the dedication of the memorial mon- 
ument, at Phoenixville, September 21, 1907.] 



WE meet here to-day upon the outer edge 
of the classic region of America. On the 
battlefield of Gettysburg the government 
of the United States has erected an elaborately in- 
scribed memorial to mark the farthest northward 
surge of the waves of rebellion. In like manner the 
borough of Phoenixville has here set up this stone 
of native granite from the shores of the French 
creek to designate the westernmost inland point 
reached by the main army of British invaders during 
the Revolutionary war, in the times that tried men's 
souls. Philadelphia was then the metropolis and 
capital city of the country, the centre of its litera- 
ture, science and cultivation, as well as of its trade 
and wealth. In that city had met the preliminary 



258 HIGH WATER MARK OF 



congress of 1774, and there, in the most mem- 
orable of American buildings, the state house of 
the province, the Continental Congress had in 
1776 issued the fateful declaration of independence, 
and in 1777 were holding their daily sessions. 
The purpose of the campaign of 1777, with its 
many battles and its long and rapid marches, was 
upon the part of Howe to capture, and upon the 
part of Washington to protect, the city of Phila- 
delphia. Both of the contestants were of the 
opinion that the outcome of this campaign would 
in all probability determine the result of the war. 
On the one side it was believed, and on the other 
it was feared, that the fall of Philadelphia would 
lead to a cessation of hostilities and the restoration 
of British control over the colonies. Howe took 
his army by sea to the Chesapeake bay, and on the 
25th of August landed at the head of the Elk river. 
On the 5th of September Washington, then at Wil- 
mington, said to his soldiers: 

" Should they push their designs against Phila- 
delphia on this route, their all is at stake. They 
will put the contest on the event of a single battle. 
If they are overthrown they are utterly undone. 



THE BRITISH INVASION 259 

The war is at an end. Now, then, is the time for 
our utmost endeavors. One bold stroke will free 
the land from rapine, devastations and burnings and 
female innocence from brutal lust and violence." 

On the iith the two armies met at Chadd's 
Ford on the Brandywine creek, and the Americans 
were defeated. Howe reported to his superiors at 
home: "The enemy's army escaped a total over- 
throw that must have been the consequence of an 
hour's more daylight;" and Washington, having 
retreated across the river to Germantown, on the 
I 3th consoled his soldiers as best he could by saying: 

"The General has the pleasure to inform the 
troops that notwithstanding we gave the enemy the 
ground, the purchase has been at [the cost of] 
much blood, this being by far the greatest loss they 
ever met with since the commencement of the war." 

The armies encountered each other again on 
the 1 6th, near the Warren Tavern, and a decisive 
engagement was anticipated, but a heavy rainstorm 
wet the ammunition and separated the combatants. 
Twenty-one Americans were killed, forty-three were 
taken prisoners, and many were wounded. It was the 
opinion of the Baron De Kalb that since the British 



26o HIGH WATER MARK OF 

were separated and the Americans united, Washing- 
ton on this occasion lost a great opportunity. 

Into the battle Isaac Anderson, a young lieu- 
tenant, then seventeen years of age, and afterward a 
member of congress, whose name heads the list of 
those who voted in favor of the Louisiana purchase in 
1 803, led a company of men from this neighborhood. 
They lay in the Warren Tavern through the night 
of the I 5th, and in the morning were stationed on 
the left of the army, on the South Valley Hill. It 
now became the object of Washington to prevent 
Howe from crossing the river, and that same night 
he withdrew the army to the Yellow Springs. At 
this place he issued an order that the loads were to 
be drawn from the guns, " but if they cannot be 
drawn, they are to remain loaded, for not one gun 
is to be fired in order to clean it. The General de- 
sires the officers to pay the most particular attention 
to these orders. Not only their own safety, but the 
salvation of the country may depend thereon." 
From there he marched to Parker's Ford, on the 
Schuylkill, where in the earlier day Edward Parker 
had established a landing for the iron from Coventry 
and Warwick, to be carried in boats down to Phila- 



THE BRITISH INVASION 261 

delphia. Sheeder, in his MS. history of Vincent, 
upon the authority of Judge John Ralston, who 
acted as guide, says that Washington came from the 
Yellow Springs to the General Pike, a few hundred 
yards above where we now are, and thence turned 
northward on Nutt's road. If this statement be 
correct, it establishes the interesting fact that both 
armies were at this place within three days of each 
other. The meeting between Washington and Ral- 
ston is very graphically depicted in the quaint and 
uncouth language of Sheeder, who says: 

"Now I shall proceed to make some remarks 
of which i never seen any mention of on record 
which is concerning g. Washington and John 
Ralston Esq. deceased. Of the later the writer was 
for 25 years an near neighbor of intimate enter- 
corse. He a many times related to me when the 
conversation on the Revolutionary [war] was the 
subject, that when g. Washington was about leving 
the Springs he made inquiries of how and who he 
could get with sufficient trust to guide him to 
Reading. Captain John Ralston was recommended 
to him to be such a one. He the General wrote a 
few lines, sent one of his officers to induce Captain 



262 HIGH WATER MARK OF 

John Ralston to appear before him. The captain 
was for making some excuses but the request was so 
pressing that he must go with the bearer. . . . His 
good conscience cheered him as he had done no 
wrong to his country and had acted the part of a 
good patriot and with this animation got to his usual 
vivacity, and when arrived at the general's quarters 
he was introduced to g. Washington by saying 
* here is Captain John Ralston.' The general at 
this time was siting at the Table writing but im- 
mediately got on his feet and walking back and for- 
wards in his room making inquiries how far he 
lived from the Springs, and how far his father lived 
from there, and how they all where, and where he 
had been born, and the captain had answered all of 
these questions, the next was * are you acquainted 
with the roads in these parts r' When the general 
put this last question he made a halt before the cap- 
tain where he had been requested to take a seat and 
staring the captain in the face. Then the captain 
use to say that then his heart beat faster than at any 
time before, looking at this monstrous big man. 
The captain replied *yea.' Then he was asked if 
he knew such and such a road that the general 



THE BRITISH INVASION 161 



made mention. The captain said * no ' he knew of 
none by that name. Like lightning he clapt his 
hand in his pocket, drew out a book with the maps 
in (In all this the captain knew nothing of the gen- 
eral's design. Here whenever the captain related 
this circumstance he made the same motion as the 
general did when he clapt his hand to his pocket) 
and looking for the road he entented to know of 
the captain and then said * the Ridge road leading 
by Brumbach's church.' The captain answered *yes' 
he was well acquainted with [it]. Then said the 
general by laying his hand on the captain's shoulder 
*You must be my pilot to Reading' and not till 
then the captain's heart ceased beating and the gen- 
eral ordered him to be ready at such an hour to- 
morrow and appear at his room. The captain done 
as ordered and the line of march was commenced 
from the Springs to Kimberton road, then to down 
Branson's road to where now the General Pike is 
where this and the Schuylkill road forks to git 
across French creek bridge as there was no stone 
bridge known of far and near at them times. 
Then up the Ridge road." 

After again crossing the river to the east bank. 



264 HIGH WATER MARK OF 

Washington marched down and encamped upon 
both sides of the Perkiomen at its mouth, watching 
the different fords below. From the French creek 
he sent Wayne with a division of fifteen hundred 
men to the rear of the British to harass them. 
This plan, which separated his army, resulted disas- 
trously, since General Grey, with a force double in 
number, fell upon Wayne on the night of the 20th, 
at Paoli, and defeated him with serious loss. There- 
upon Howe turned his back upon Philadelphia and 
marched northward, having in view, it may be, the 
stores accumulated at Reading, the more shallow 
fords further up the river, or more probably only 
intending a deceptive manoeuvre. 

At 2 P. M. on the 19th the column of Lord 
Cornwallis encamped at the Bull Tavern. On the 
2 1 St, of which day we are now celebrating the one 
hundred and thirtieth anniversary, How^e marched up 
Nutt's road, and the left wing of the army reached 
the point where this stone is erected. Howe says: 

"On the 2 1 St the army moved by Valley 
Forge and encamped upon the banks of the 
Schuylkill, extending from Fatland Ford to the 
French Creek." 



THE BRITISH INVASION 26s 

This general description did not quite hold out 
at either end. Major John Andre, who later met 
so sad a fate, kept a journal, and it fortunately hap- 
pens that he prepared a careful plan of the location 
of the army along Nutt's road. He says they cov- 
ered an extent of three miles from Fatland Ford to 
"some distance beyond Moore Hall." 

Howe's headquarters were at the house of 
William Grimes, on the high ground near the Bull 
Tavern. The first brigade were upon the east side 
of the road, about a mile above the Valley Forge. 
Then came the second brigade on the west side of 
the road. The fourth brigade were on the high 
ground on the east side, overlooking the river back 
of the Bull. The third brigade were on the west 
side of the road on land of Matthias Pennypacker, 
still owned by some of his great grandchildren, op- 
posite the present hamlet of the Corner Stores. 
General Grey, the victor at Paoli the night before, 
had his quarters at a house at the southwest corner 
of the White Horse road and Nutt's road. The 
Second regiment of light infantry and the Hessians 
under General Stern were here. 

The Hessian general, Knyphausen, had his 



(i66 HIGH WATER MARK OF 

quarters at the house of Frederick Buzzard, on the 
west side of the road above the Corner Stores. 
Ehzabeth Rossiter, a daughter of Moses Coates, 
who lived on Main street west of Nutt's road, gave, 
in I 84 1, when eighty-five years of age, this descrip- 
tion of their approach : 

*' The first that I saw of the British was the 
evening after the massacre at Paoli. Four girls of 
us were out walking in the road opposite to father's 
close by Polly Buckwalter's lane, when accosted by 
three men sitting on their horses near by us. They 
said, * Girls, you had better go home.' Wc asked 
* Why ?' * Because the English regulars are coming 
up the road.' At this moment two more Americans 
came riding up the road at full speed and announced 
that the army was just behind. We looked down the 
road and saw them in great numbers opposite Becky 
Lynch's. The army encamped the whole way from 
Valley Forge to Mason's Hill by the tavern." 

Andre says that large bodies of the Americans 
were seen on the opposite shore and that they fre- 
quently fired on the sentries. That same night 
Washington hastened to Potts Grove, twelve miles 
further up the river. 



THE BRITISH INVASION iS-j 



At that time the rules of warfare were more 
lax than they are at present, and the British occu- 
pation resulted in much destruction of property and 
violence to persons, and it caused the greatest con- 
sternation among the inhabitants. The Valley forge 
and Colonel William Dewees's mill at that place 
were burned, the powder mill on the French creek 
near here, where Peter Dehaven was making pow- 
der for the continental army, was destroyed, and at 
Matthias Pennypacker's mill on the Pickering, after 
all the grain and flour had been taken, the soldiers 
broke up the machinery and cut the bolting cloths 
into pieces. Upon all sides it was a scene of plun- 
der. Patrick Anderson at that time had a company 
in the continental army, and his family abandoned 
their home and fled for safety, with a team of oxen, 
horses and provisions, to a lonely place in the woods 
along Stony run. In their absence the British de- 
stroyed the furniture and carried away property 
valued at £,'^01^ 3s. 6d., including eleven cows, seven 
other cattle, forty sheep, ten swine, nineteen geese, 
six turkeys and ninety-six chickens. 

The family of Edward Lane lived in a Cones- 
toga wagon in the woods near Diamond rock for 



268 HIGH WATER MARK OF 



several days. The beds in the house were ripped 
open and everything about was destroyed. A 
daughter of Moses Coates related in 1841 : 

"No sooner were they encamped than they 
began to plunder the surrounding country. They 
came in great numbers to my father's, carrying 
away potatoes, fowls, hay and everything they could 
make use of. A flock of geese in the yard was 
taken from the door. A Hessian taking one by 
the neck and holding it up before us said, * Dis bees 
good for de Hessian mans,' when Elizabeth told 
him she hoped he would choke on the bones." 

William Fussell then lived here in a house 
later converted into the Fountain Inn. It was 
thoroughly ransacked. His wife thinking to save 
some bed curtains, wrapped them about her person 
and covered them with her dress, but some Hessian 
women, of keen vision, without any ceremony, 
threw her down on the floor and unwound the coils. 

The house of Benjamin Boyer had been 
stripped of everything of value. Some of the fam- 
ily then carried the hives of bees inside, and putting 
them in the room in the west end of the first floor, 
covered them with a sheet. An intruder appeared, 



THE BRITISH INVASION 269 

and demanding to know what was there concealed, 
was informed they were bees. Not to be deceived 
by what seemed to be so plain a subterfuge, he 
jerked off the sheet and was severely stung by the 
already disturbed and enraged insects. This story 
was told of no less important a person than Lord 
Cornwallis. 

Joseph Starr, accused of being a spy, was 
placed in confinement and very much abused, but 
was soon afterward released. 

Most of the young women secreted themselves 
and kept out of the way, but the three sisters of a 
farmer living within half a mile of this point, 
whose name I forbear to give, were dragged to the 
camp and outrageously maltreated. 

A son of Moses Coates, then a mere youth, 
owned a horse which was stolen from the pasture 
field by some of the British. The young man went 
to headquarters, and upon asking to see the general 
in command, was met with derisive smiles. He 
however insisted and was finally ushered into the 
presence of Howe. There he was questioned and 
told that he could have his horse if he would cross 
the Schuylkill and report the location and condition 



270 HIGH WATER MARK OF 

of the American army. The proposition was rein- 
forced by the offer of six guineas in addition. He 
indignantly declined the suggestion, and after it had 
been found that he could not be prevailed upon to 
serve their purposes, he was given permission to 
search for his horse and take it away. That this 
family were held in high favor by the American 
officers appears from a letter to Colonel Thomas 
Bradford, dated Moore Hall, May 19th, 1778, and 
published in the Lee papers, which says: 

" Col. Biddle mentions to me Mr. Moses Coates 
about a mile from hence just back of his quarters, 
where there is a good house and agreeable family 
with every convenient accommodation and will 
probably suit you both at least equally well with 
your present situation." 

At this time there was living in a cave in the 
hill just below the Pennsylvania railroad station in 
the present village of Mont Clare a man named 
Patrick Gordon, who had been a tenant under the 
Penns since 1 76 1 , and the ford across the Schuyl- 
kill, where is now the bridge at the terminus of 
Bridge street, became known as Gordon's ford. 
As such it is famous in the history of the Revolu- 



THE BRITISH INVASION 271 

tion, since here for the first time the British were 
able to cross the river. Colonel John Montresor, 
Howe's chief of engineers, writes in his journal on 
the 2 2d: 

"At 5 this morning the Hessian Grenadiers 
passed the Schuylkill at Gordon's Ford under fire of 
their artillery and small arms and returned back be- 
ing intended as a feint." 

He further tells us on the 21st "A bridge was 
ordered to be made across the Schuylkill at this 
place [Moore Hall] where the river is 120 yards 
and got in great forwardness intending to deceive 
the enemy." 

Andre says on the 2 2d: 

"In the evening the Guards passed the river at 
Fatland Ford and the Hessian Chasseurs and some 
grenadiers passed at some distance above Moore 
Hall. Some light dragoons crossed at dusk at Long 
Ford. The guns of the Hessians and those of the 
third brigade fired a few shots across the river oppo- 
site their encampment to deceive the enemy with 
respect to the ford at which it was intended the 
army should pass." 

The firing of cannon therefore extended from 



272 HIGH WATER MARK OF 

here to the Corner Stores and the balls were shot 
over what is now South Phcenixville. The Long 
ford at which the light dragoons crossed is where 
the White Horse road passing through the Corner 
Stores reaches the river. 

Howe in his report says: 

"On the 2 2d the grenadiers and light infantry 
of the guards crossed over in the afternoon at Fat- 
land Ford to take post, and the Chasseurs crossing 
soon after at Gordon's Ford opposite to the left of 
the line took post there also. The army was put 
in motion at midnight, the vanguard being led by 
Lord Cornwallis, and the whole crossed the river at 
Fatland Ford without opposition." 

It is plain from the stories of the treatment of 
Starr and Coates and from other traditions that the 
British were eager to find local guides who were 
familiar with the country and fords, and that they 
had difficulty in securing them. In the early morn- 
ing Cornwallis and his staff came riding across the 
fields toward Gordon's ford, and at the residence 
of Thomas Robinson they called the old man and 
told him they wanted him to point out the location 
of the ford. He declined, but when they threat- 



THE BRITISH INVASION 273 

ened compulsion he put on his broad brimmed hat 
and went along, determined to be of as little use as 
possible. They were on horseback, he was on foot 
and he was soon lagging far in the rear, with slow 
gait and tardy steps. When Cornwallis reached the 
crest of the hill near the Starr farm house he turned 
to ask some questions and found that his guide was 
almost out of sight. An aide hurried him up to 
the general, who threatened and swore furiously. 
Just then, however, the balls from across the river 
began to whistle about them, distracting the atten- 
tion of Cornwallis, and Robinson, taking advantage 
of the opportunity, briskly disappeared. The wing 
of the army which crossed at Fatland Ford took 
with them a son of Edward Lane as a guide. To 
all questions put to him he answered in a silly way, 
"I don't know," and they dismissed him as either 
stupid or obstinate. Then they compelled Jacob 
Richardson to conduct them across the river, and 
he went with them to Philadelphia, and he there 
remained, afraid to return. During the following 
winter he one day saw an American officer of some 
prominence disguised as a Quaker farmer selling 
provisions in the market. He told the officer he 



274 HIGH WATER MARK OF 



was known and in danger and aided him to escape. 
On arriving at Valley Forge, the officer detailed the 
circumstances and made a certificate of the attach- 
ment to the American cause of Richardson, who 
then came back to his home. It appears of record 
officially that he was proclaimed as a tory and after- 
ward discharged. 

To protect the crossing at Gordon's ford the 
British planted a battery on the high ground on the 
Starr farm and from it they iired at least three shots, 
one of which struck the corner of the farm house 
in Mont Clare removed by Joseph Whitaker about 
forty years ago. The crossing was not accomplished 
without some sacrifice. A Briton and his horse 
were shot and killed under the buttonwood trees 
still standing where the roads to Norristown and 
Port Providence intersect in Mont Clare. The 
man was carried away, but the horse lay there for 
several days afterward. A rifleman concealed on 
the island shot a British officer just as he was about 
to enter the water at the ford. He fell and was 
taken back to the house of John Allen on the 
south side of Bridge street, where in a short time 
he died. He was buried in the Starr burying 



THE BRITISH INVASION o.'js 

ground directly in the angle at the northeast corner 
of Main and Church streets. 

John Keiter, born at Skippack, then lived at 
the Rhoades farm house on the north bank of the 
French creek, and he went over the hill toward the 
mouth of the creek to watch the army. A Hessian 
raising his piece fired at him and the ball struck a 
tree near the river. The tree with its bullet hole 
stood until within a comparatively recent period. 

A squad of the British stopped at Gordon's 
cave, and there found a goose roasting on the fire. 
While they were busy having a rich feast, they 
were abandoned by their comrades and were cap- 
tured by a body of American militia who had come 
down from the hills to follow in the rear of the 
enemy. 

While there is some difference in the contem- 
porary statements as to the exact time when the 
main army crossed the river, Howe and Montresor 
agree that it began after midnight on the morning 
of the 23d, and according to Howe it ended at two 
o'clock in the afternoon, when Major General Grant 
with the rear guard and the baggage reached the 
further shore. Sergeant Thomas Sullivan, of the 



276 HIGH WATER MARK OF 



Forty-ninth regiment of foot, in his journal makes 
the same statement. The country they had left was 
a scene of desolation. The fences had been torn 
down and burned, the corn in the fields had been 
beaten to the ground by the feet of horses and men, 
and what was left of the hay and straw from the 
barns lay in the mud of the deserted encampments. 
The two wings of the army came together at Bean's 
tavern, on the Manatawny road, and after stopping 
" to dry themselves and rest" they went on their way. 

And what in the meantime was Washington 
doing, and what did he think of these occurrences.? 
This is what he wrote from Potts Grove to the 
president of Congress on the 23d: 

"The enemy, by a variety of perplexing ma- 
noeuvres through a country from which I could not 
derive the least intelligence, being to a man disaf- 
fected, contrived to pass the Schuylkill last night at 
the Fatland half a mile below Valley Forge and 
other fords in the neighborhood." 

It is rather remarkable that the day before 
Montresor, the British engineer, had written exactly 
the opposite statement of fact and used the same 
word, saying: 



THE BRITISH INVASION 277 



"Inhabitants many about Moore Hall fled, be- 
ing disaffected." 

General John Armstrong wrote to President 
Wharton from the Trappe a day or two later: 

" A feint of the enemy in rapidly moving a 
part of their body up the Schuylkill by French 
Creek led the general to apprehend they designed to 
cross above us and turn our right wing. To pre- 
vent this he marched high on this side of the Swamp 
Road, when the same night or next morning they 
crossed at Fatland Ford. ... So that before full 
intelligence of their crossing came to headquarters, 
or rather before it gained credit, they were thought 
in council to be at too great a distance to be har- 
assed in the rear by fatigued troops." 

Upon Friday, the 26th of September, a cold, 
rough, wdndy day, about ten o'clock in the morn- 
ing, fifteen hundred of the British and Hessian gren- 
adiers, under the command of Lord Cornwallis, Sir 
William Erskine and Commissary General Wier, 
led by Colonel Harcourt and his light dragoons, 
with a band of music playing " God Save the King," 
marched in triumph into Philadelphia. On the same 
day, almost at the same instant of time, Washington 



278 HIGH JVATER MARK OF 



and the continental army went into camp at Penny- 
packer's Mills. The campaign which had been be- 
lieved to be fraught with consequences so moment- 
ous had ended with Howe in possession of the city 
and Washington out upon the hills of the Perki- 
omen. 

The Revolutionary war was brought to a suc- 
cessful conclusion not by the display of exceptional 
military skill or by brilliant successes upon the fields 
of battle, but by the firmness and undaunted per- 
sistence of Washington, supported by a steadfast 
people. Had they been shaken by the clamor which 
arose against him at the close of the unsuccessful 
campaign of 1777, culminating in the efforts of 
Conway in the army, and certain members of the 
Congress, to remove him from his command, the 
colonies would probably have remained in the con- 
dition of Canada and South Africa. 

Every age is confronted with its own dangers, 
and there is a lesson in the result of the Revolution- 
ary war and in the conduct of our forefathers of 
that time amid trying difficulties, to which we may 
well give heed to-day. Mommsen wrote of the 
Celts that they have been "good soldiers but bad 



THE BRITISH INVASION i-j^ 

citizens," and that they " have shaken all states and 
have founded none." The cause is to be seen in 
that weakness of character which led them to strike 
at every man who rose above the level of the mass, 
and therefore brought about internal dissension 
thwarting every important effort. So long as we 
cherish the virtues which conduce to self respect, to 
confidence in and support of those whom we select 
to administer our affairs, and to faith in our system 
of government, our institutions are safe, both against 
assault and disintegration, while the loss of these 
virtues will be the premonitory symptom of the fate 
that befell Assyria and Rome. 



MATTHEW STANLEY 
QUAY 

[An address delivered before the Legislature of Pennsylvania, on the 
occasion of the memorial services, March zz, 1905.] 

" He reads much ; 
He is a great observer and he looks 
Quite through the deeds of men." 

Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene H. 

IN the township of Schuylkill, in the county of 
Chester, in this state, within two miles of the 
Valley Forge, and within half a mile of the 
famous colonial mansion known as Moore Hall, 
whence William Moore rode forth as a colonel into 
the French and Indian war, a rill of water starting 
in a spring along the slope of a hill finds its way 
to the Pickering creek, which a mile beyond emp- 
ties into the river Schuylkill. There is no habita- 
tion in sight, but over the spring stands a dilapidated 
stone spring house and beside the rill are the trunks 
of some cherry trees which fruited long ago. On 



MATTHEW STAJSILEY ^UAY 281 

a broken limb the robin unalarmed sings his note 
of hope, and on the decaying roof the red squirrel 
undisturbed sits to crack his nut. At this spot, now 
wild and deserted, blue with the violet and yellow 
with the dandelion, James Anderson, the earliest 
known American ancestor of Matthew Stanley Quay, 
built a rude log cabin in 1713 and became the pio- 
neer settler in that region of country. His life had 
its chapter of romance. Born on the isle of Skye, 
in Scotland, as a youth he found his way to America, 
went to work for a Quaker preacher and miller o± 
means living in the Chester valley, eloped with the 
daughter of his employer and brought her here to 
be his wife and companion in the woods. Their 
only neighbors were the Delaware Indians, who 
were near and friendly. When their oldest boy, 
Patrick, came into the world, later to be a captain 
in the French and Indian war, a member of the 
Pennsylvania Assembly, a major in Wayne's regi- 
ment in the Revolution, and commander of the 
Pennsylvania musketry battalion after the battle of 
Long Island, he was at times suckled by an Indian 
squaw while his mother trudged across the Valley 
hills to visit her old home. Nearly two hundred 



282 MATTHEW STANLET ^UA7 



years afterwards the great grandson of this colonial 
and revolutionary soldier arose in his seat in the 
United States senate and compelled compliance by 
the national government with contracts, spurned and 
forgotten by every one else, which were for the 
benefit of the Delaware Indians in their reservation 
to the west of the Mississippi. What manner of 
man was this who alone had the will to take up 
the cause of the friendless, the strength to make his 
efforts successful, and who refused to permit two 
centuries of time to weaken an obligation ? 

Matthew Stanley Quay in his character and 
work was a purely American product. To say that 
he was a typical Pennsylvanian does not much nar- 
row the proposition, for Henry Adams has truly 
written: *'If the American Union succeeded, the 
good sense, liberality and democratic spirit of Penn- 
sylvania had a right to claim credit for the result." 
It has ever been the policy of the American gov- 
ernment, following the example set by Penn in 
1682, to open wide the doors for the inpour of 
people of other lands endeavoring to escape from 
the rigidity of institutions and conventionalities at 
home, and it is to be hoped this liberality may have 



MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 283 



long continuance. Nevertheless he has a stronger 
incentive to patriotic effort and feels a keener interest 
in the welfare of both commonwealth and nation, 
who may look back to the participation of his fore- 
fathers in the early trials and struggles of the people. 
"A human life," wrote George Eliot, "should be 
well rooted in some spot of a native land." 

Major Patrick Anderson married Ann Beaton, 
sister of Colonel John Beaton, as deft in penman- 
ship as he was vigorous with the sword, who through 
the whole period of the Revolution performed 
effective service in the military affairs of Chester 
county. Joseph Quav wooed and won their daugh- 
ter, and, with commendable pride, named his son 
Anderson Beaton Quay, and trained him to become 
a clergyman in the Presbyterian church. 

The inheritance to which Matthew Stanley 
Quay succeeded was one of honorable traditions and 
little substance. No great career ever began under 
more unpropitious auspices and no leader of men 
ever depended less upon mere adventitious and per- 
sonal advantages. He was born September 30, 
1833, in Dillsburg, York county, where his father 
then had a church, a village which even to-day has 



284 MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 

a population of only seven hundred and thirty-two 
persons. The family income probably never ex- 
ceeded eight hundred dollars a year. He was short 
in stature, meagre in form and had no presence likely 
to impress the ordinary observer. His voice had so 
little volume that he shunned public speech. A 
weakened muscle permitted one eyelid to droop and 
seemed to those to whom the cause was unknown to 
give warning of a certain subtlety. A tendency to 
pulmonary trouble, which had brought death to 
many of the immediate household, was an ever 
present threat from early manhood to late maturity. 
At the age of seventeen years he was graduated 
from Jefferson College, at twenty-one he was ad- 
mitted to the bar, and two years later became pro- 
thonotary of Beaver county. So freighted and so 
equipped he entered upon the struggles of a life be- 
set from start to finish with tumultuous storn;i and 
unrelenting strife. 

The task which nature in its adaptation of 
means to necessary ends had fitted him to perform, 
or toward which the current and pressure of events 
swept him, or, if it be preferred, which he, im- 
pelled by the instinct for the exercise of conscious 



MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 285 



power, as some birds take to the water and others to 
the air, set for himself, was one of high importance 
and of vast complication and difficulty. Seldom in 
the history of the world have the forces which make 
for the advancement of the people been set in mo- 
tion or directed by those charged with the functions 
of government. The ruler, whether hereditary or 
selected, is apt to be a conservative, satisfied with 
the conditions which have led to his elevation and 
interested that they should be continued. It might 
be written of the uncrowned king of many another 
land beside Miletus that 

" He had grown so great 
The throne was lost behind the subject's shadow." 

It was no king of Prussia, but Count Bismarck, 
who brought about the consolidation of the German 
empire. In the struggle of England with France 
for supremacy it was not George III, but William 
Pitt, who welded the forces which finally led to 
the overthrow of the Corsican. How many of us 
can tell which one of the Bourbons was king of 
France in the time of Cardinal Richelieu? There 
is a catalogue of the kings of England. It is 
printed in the histories, and perhaps the children 



286 MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 



are still compelled to learn it by rote, as they cer- 
tainly at one time were, but the men whose charac- 
ters left their impress upon the determining events 
in the development of English life and institutions 
were Becket and Wolsey, Shaftesbury and Claren- 
don, Disraeli and Gladstone. In the main the rulers 
who have been potent factors in shaping the desti- 
nies of their time have been those who like Caesar, 
Cromwell and Napoleon grasped sceptres, set them- 
selves upon thrones and established dynasties. The 
experience of other countries has been repeated in 
America because it is an evolution, the outcome of 
laws more permanent than any system of govern- 
ment, deep seated as nature itself, which influence 
all human institutions. Alexander Hamilton, Albert 
Gallatin, Thaddeus Stevens and many others of a 
type entirely familiar to the student of our affairs 
never reached the presidency of the United States, 
but they formulated measures and dictated policies 
to an extent which few presidents have been able 
to equal. When we reflect that the president is 
elected for a term of only four years, the governors 
of the states for a term of from one to four years, 
a period entirely too brief to permit the acquisition 



MATTHEIV STANLEY ^UAT 287 

of accurate knowledge, and that they reach these 
positions only through the nominations of political 
parties, it must be plain that men will arise who, 
possessing the capacity, devoting themselves to the 
study of public interests and the methods of ad- 
vancing them, acquiring the skill and proficiency 
which come with experience, exercise a dominating 
influence in public affairs. Fortunately they suc- 
ceed only by a sort of divine right and hold their 
power only so long as they serve the public need. 
No other steep is so hard to climb and the foothold 
upon no other crest is so precarious. He who 
reaches the height is a mental athlete, and he who 
holds it a marvel of capacity. We give our plaudits 
to the successful general who can command an 
army of a hundred thousand troops, but he has the 
power of life and death to enable him to enforce 
discipline. We wonder at the organization of a 
great railroad system, but every employe knows that 
the livelihood of his wife and children depends upon 
his attention to the orders given him. What are we 
to think of him who without any of these means 
of control prevails upon a million of men to forget 
their diverse vdews and interests and to work to- 



288 MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 



gether for a common political purpose ? Such mas- 
ters of statecraft, in other lands and in earlier days 
in this country, were called statesmen and were hon- 
ored for their achievements. That we have become 
so prone of recent years to apply to them opprobri- 
ous epithets only shows that we are beginning to 
forget the philosophy of our institutions and to be 
weary of the system of government handed down 
to us by the fathers. 

In the capacity for the building up and the 
maintenance of political forces and for their applica- 
tion to the accomplishment of public ends, it may 
well be doubted whether the country ever before 
produced the equal of Mr. Quay. From the time 
of his election to the office of state treasurer, in 
1885, down until his death on the 28th of May, 
1904, public and political results in this state may 
be said to have rested upon his decision. During 
this long period every means which human ingenu- 
ity could devise and unlimited resources could bring 
to bear was used to overthrow his influence. Coali- 
tions between shrewd politicians seeking for substan- 
tial reward, heated zealots and earnest reformers, 
looking backward to the golden age and forward to 



MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 289 

Utopia, exerted their energies without effect. Men 
whom he had trained and who had gathered infor- 
mation as his allies were secured to do battle against 
him only to meet discomfiture. Scandal intended 
to be harmful to the state and to him, disseminated 
far beyond the state's borders, seemed only to give 
him strength. Even the processes of the criminal 
court of Philadelphia were invoked by his enemies 
and in vain. Thrifty commercialism reaching out 
to grasp the senatorship clutched the empty air. 
His final reliance was ever upon the confidence of 
the people. The bourgeoisie and the men in blouses 
never failed him. When, in 1885, the political 
powers then in control decreed his retirement, he 
announced instead his candidacy for a high state 
office and he won. Ten years later seemingly over- 
whelming forces united to wrest from him the con- 
trol of the organization of his party. They included 
the governor, the mayor of Philadelphia, the party 
organizations in Philadelphia and Pittsburg and the 
strongest corporate influences in the state. The in- 
itial step was an effort to secure the chairmanship of 
the state committee and they suggested for the po- 
sition a gentleman long identified with Mr. Quay 



29© MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 

in political movements. Mr. Quay picked up the 
glove and announced that he himself would contest 
for the chairmanship. No such political battle was 
ever before or since waged in America. Neither 
Marlborough nor Bonaparte ever contended with 
such odds in opposition. But to use his own meta- 
phor, he carried the "fiery cross" from Philadel- 
phia to Erie, the very audacity of the movement 
brought the people to his support, and again he won. 
None but a real leader among men so compels ad- 
verse circumstances to yield to his will. And when 
he went, physically feeble, tottering toward his 
grave, quiet had settled over all factions and there 
were none to dispute his mastery. 

In Southey's poem of the Battle of Blenheim, 
when little Peterkin asked : 

"But what good came of it at last?" 
the answer was : 

"Why that I cannot tell, said he, 
But 'twas a famous victory." 

No such reply can be given by the political 
leader. Mere success, no matter how much we ad- 
mire the skill and the prowess, can never be a justi- 



MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 291 



fication. While he may be excused from adopting 
the standards of the idealist and from pursuing 
methods which are impracticable and lead to inevi- 
table failure, the welfare of the community and the 
improvement of public life are the objects for which 
parties arise and governments are instituted, and 
unless these ends be served the outcome is a barren 
waste. The work of Mr. Quay must be subjected 
at last to this test. The majority for the Republi- 
can candidate for president in this state in 1888, the 
first presidential election after Mr. Quay became 
recognized as the leader of his party, was 79,458, 
and the majority for the Republican candidate for 
president in the year of his death had risen to 
505,519. In other words, during the course of his 
career, the people of the commonwealth were 
rapidly drifting into accord with his political views. 
It at least shows that they were not dissatisfied with 
prevailing conditions. It may be open to dispute as 
to whether or not the principles of one political 
party are more nearly correct than those of another, 
but this much is certain, that those of the Repub- 
lican party have controlled the affairs of the nation 
throughout a long period of great growth and pros- 



292 MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAY 

perity, and that Pennsylvania has been their most 
pronounced and assured advocate and exponent. In 
1885 her indebtedness amounted to $17,972,683.28, 
and since that time it has been entirely liquidated 
except as to a comparatively small amount not due 
and covered by moneys in the sinking fund. Her 
revenues are more than twice those of the nation at 
the time Jefferson made the Louisiana purchase. 
She taxes no man's farm or home. Mr. Quay him- 
self, as chairman of the Committee on Ways and 
Means of the House, carried into operation the act 
freeing real estate from taxation and resulting in the 
system of collecting her revenues from the corpora- 
tions of the state, a system studied with benefit by 
those responsible for the financial methods of Mas- 
sachusetts, New York, and Virginia. Where else on 
earth is there a people more prosperous, contented 
and happy? Her laborers receive in comparison with 
those of other lands and other states remunerative 
compensation, and her proprietors dissipate the sur- 
plus of their large fortunes in building universities 
in Chicago and libraries over the world. The man- 
agement of her affairs has been in the main cleanly 
and efficient and conducted with a spirit so liberal 



MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 293 

that many of her judges, for a long time the state 
librarian, and through three administrations the 
superintendent of her schools, directing the annual 
expenditure of $6,000,000, have been retained in 
office, though of opposite political faith. In what 
other state is there the evidence of such advanced 
political thought ? She has had sufficient breadth 
of view to give attention to correct sentiment and 
even to aesthetics. Monuments have been erected 
on distant battlefields to commemorate the bravery 
of her soldiers. She preserved the field of Gettys- 
burg and after making it a Valhalla and marking it 
with a care unknown elsewhere, she gave it into the 
custody of the nation. She has established a park 
at Valley Forge that the tenacious courage of the 
American Revolutionary soldiers may not be forgot- 
ten. She has taken means to preserve and cultivate 
her forests. She protects the game in her woods 
and the fish in her waters. No one of these move- 
ments could have succeeded without the support of 
Mr. Quay, and many of them had their origin in 
his direct intervention. In that impressive speech 
in the American Academy of Music in 1 90 i , wherein 
he prophetically announced that his political race was 



294 MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 

run, and pathetically declared : " I have many friends 
to remember, I have no enemies to punish," he did 
not forget the cause of higher education and made 
this appeal for the University of Pennsylvania : 
" The state and the people of Pennsylvania should 
cherish it and make of it, as they can, the first 
temple of science in the world.'' 

The time came when the personal influence of 
Mr. Quay, apart from that of the state in whose 
councils he was so potent, was exerted in national 
affairs. In 1887 he took his seat in the United 
States Senate. To an extent equalled by few other 
American statesmen, he permanently affected the 
development of our national life. For a quarter of 
a century no Republican could have been elected 
president of the United States and no national policy 
have succeeded without his consent. Two of the 
presidents were placed in that high office because of 
his personal efforts. In 1888, in charge of the 
national Republican campaign, he confronted his 
opponents in the city of New York, cowed them in 
their stronghold, where even Mr. Blaine had failed, 
and by the exercise of both strength and skill en- 
sured the election of Mr. Harrison. In 1900, by 



MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 295 

the defeat of Mr. Hanna, who came to the national 
convention fortified with at least the tacit support of 
the administration, he secured the nomination for 
the vice presidency of Mr. Roosevelt with all the 
momentous consequences later to flow from that 
event. The manufacturers of the country made 
their contracts for the erection of mills and the em- 
ployment of workmen with a sense of entire securitv 
that so long as he remained in the Senate the doc- 
trine of protection, so important to them, would be 
maintained as the national policy. The Force bill 
stood in its way and he defeated the measure. 
When Mr. Cleveland sought to destroy the tariff 
system, he thwarted the efforts of the president and 
obtained such a modification of the radical views 
urged as to have the act adopted comport with 
safety. Florida looked up to him as her third sen- 
ator. Three territories relied upon him to lift them 
to the dignity of statehood, and in all probability 
only his death disappointed their expectations. 
When the religious sentiment of the country was 
aroused by the proposition to open the gates of the 
Columbian Exposition at Chicago on Sundays, 
through his efforts they were kept closed. When 



296 MATTHEfF STANLEY ^UAT 

there was need for wise counsel or energetic action, 
no other senator had more fully the confidence of his 
fellows and as a result no other of them was more 
effective in accomplishing or preventing legislation. 
To what cause was his continuous success to 
be attributed? How did it come about that this 
bold sailor was able to guide his bark over the 
stormiest of seas in safety for a lifetime, when all 
around so many others sank beneath the waves? In 
the days of our savage forefathers, whenever an un- 
usual or extraordinary event in the domain of nature 
happened, it was explained to their undisciplined 
minds as the outcome of sorcery or witchcraft. 
The ignorant of our own time, when the results of 
public controversies disappoint them, and "the rustic 
cackle of their burgh" has been mistaken for "the 
echo of the great wave that rolls around the world," 
find easy consolation in the thought that those who 
differ have been corrupt. It is a scientific axiom 
that whenever a fact is ascertained which is not in 
accord with an accepted theory, the theory must be 
discarded as incorrect. It happened in many of the 
most important of Mr. Quay's political battles, 
notably in the contest of 1895 and with Mr. Wan- 



MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 297 

amaker, such power as comes from the possession of 
money was in the league against him. There is a 
story which has come down to us from the days of 
old that once a wonderful musician charmed the 
ears of the people with the wild and weird notes of 
an unearthly music and when the curious listeners 
peered into his instrument, behold ! it turned out 
that he played but upon a single string, stretched 
across a dead man's skull. Mr. Quay was not that 
kind of an artist. He knew alike what were the 
needs of the manufacturer that the mills might be 
prosperous and what were the aspirations of the 
laborer that the little home might be adorned; he 
understood the manner of life in the trades, in the 
professions, and on the farms; he sympathized with 
the old soldier, proudly wearing his decorations at 
his Grand Army post, and with the miner carrying 
a light in his cap to dispel the underground dark- 
ness — and all these were chords in that mighty in- 
strument which responded to his touch, and which 
embraced all the interests and hopes of a great com- 
monwealth. The successful chess player wins his 
game because he is able to see the plans of his ad- 
versary and to make the combinations which are 



298 MATTHEW STAN LET ^UAT 



necessary to overthrow them. It is idle to learn his 
moves, because the same situation never again occurs. 
Mr. Quay overcame his opponents because he saw- 
more clearly, reasoned more accurately and delved 
more deeply. They who thought they knew some 
petty or unscrupulous device which they might learn 
by sitting at his feet and then go off to imitate 
wasted their efforts. Strong men brought into con- 
tact with him, impressed by the extent of his infor- 
mation, the breadth of his views, and the sagacity 
of his conclusions, became his adherents. Mr. 
Johnson, of Philadelphia, and Mr. Watson, of Pitts- 
burg, both have testified to his perception of difficult 
legal propositions ; Mr. Swank to his knowledge of 
the statistics of iron manufacture, and Mr. Kipling 
to his acquaintance with literature. He accumu- 
lated a large library, carried books with him when 
he went to fish, wrote from Florida letters in the 
Latin tongue and discussed the merits of the Italian 
poets over the table with Mr. Roosevelt. The only 
subscribers among the senators to Brown's Genesis 
of the United States were Mr. Quay and Mr. Lodge. 
He never doubted the people of the state or the 
merits of their achievements, and they reciprocated 



MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 299 

the conlidence. There are those among us who, 
Hke the false mother in the time of Solomon, would 
dissever the commonwealth if they could seize a frag- 
ment, and who never tire in their dispraise, but he 
wrote and in his heart believed that " of all this 
union of states, Pennsylvania is the fairest and the 
happiest and the most intelligent and the best gov- 
erned." He could turn phrases with the same apt 
skill that he directed conventions. 

He was not without faults. If his conduct 
sometimes fell below the highest ethical standards, 
where is the man who can honestly scan his own life 
and throw a stone ? Though he cared nothing for 
the mere accumulation of money, and was little 
** afflicted with the mania for owning things," he ex- 
ulted in the exercise of power and like the war horse 
in Job smelled ** the battle afar off, the thunder of the 
captains and the shouting." He regarded men and 
their aims too much as mere counters to be used for 
his purposes. He cared too little for their comment. 
But in nature, as a distinguished poet has observed : 
" The low sun makes the color." 

However much we may admire, we seldom 
love the austerely virtuous. 



300 MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 

He was simple and modest and absolutely with- 
out vanity. After his winning the presidency for 
Mr. Harrison, at no dinners amid the clanking of 
glasses did he tell of what he had accomplished and 
there is no record in his manuscript to narrate to us 
what he thought of the work of his life. Like 
Wayne and Meade, like Rittenhouse and Dickinson, 
he left behind him no book of memoirs to impress 
upon future generations how much they owed to his 
efforts, but if his letters to politicians and men of 
affairs could be gathered together, and printed, their 
cleanliness and delicacy, their indications of quick 
perception and abundant information, their gentle- 
ness and self restraint would lead to a higher and 
more just appreciation of the requirements of public 
life. 

He had a keen sense of duty. There are men 
who would scorn to fail in the performance of the 
obligations of a sealed instrument who without 
compunction pass lightly over the claims of home, 
friendship and country. It signified much that his 
sons grown to young manhood ever gave him a 
parting kiss before they retired for the night. His 
grandmother as she neared her end three-quarters of 



MATTUEW STANLEY ^UAY 301 

a century ago besought those around her to bury her 
among her kindred in Chester county. Their 
means were limited and her grave was dug in Ohio. 
Two years ago Mr. Quay, hearing of her wish, saw 
to it that thenceforth she rested in the family grave- 
yard near the home of her youth. A hint was per- 
haps all that an appealing friend could secure, but it 
was never forgotten and seldom ineffective. In 
1862 he had resigned from the colonelcy of the 
134th Pennsylvania Volunteers. The army of the 
Potomac marched forth to do battle. Arising from 
a bed of sickness he hastened to the Rappahannock, 
fought as a volunteer aide along the front line at 
Fredericksburg and later received from Congress a 
medal of honor for brave and unusual service. With 
him it meant little to say that his term had ended.* 

*The original of the following letter has been discovered since the 
death of the senator and it aids in forming an estimate of his character. 

Camp near Falmouth, 
Dec. 10, 1862. 
Dear Col. : 

My resignation has just been returned accepted. 

The army moves on the rebel lines tonight unless orders are counter- 
manded. There will probably be a bloody struggle & I will stay to see it 
through. Unless knocked on the head 1 will be with you on Friday or Sat- 
urday. Respflly and truly yrs 
Col. J. H. Puleston. M. S. Quay 



302 MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 



Who is there to-day who cares for the Indian, 
whether he comes or whether he goes? We hold 
by an unassailable title the lands that once belonged 
to him, and his braves in their moccasined feet count 
for nothing in the marts of commerce or in the 
conventions of parties. But Pennsylvania, which 
still looks back to that famous treaty at Shacka- 
maxon, which was never signed and never broken, 
may feel her pride stir again when she reflects that 
the last service of her senator was rendered, not in 
an effort to gain political advantage or to advance 
her interests, but in aid of the wronged, the down- 
trodden and the helpless. 

In every village in the state, and in many be- 
yond it, may be heard the tales of his goodness of 
heart and his tender and helpful sympathy for the 
unfortunate. An old and impoverished widow of 
a soldier in Indiana, who had exhausted, without 
result, the influence of the politicians of her own 
state, as a last resort wrote to Mr. Quay, and in a 
few weeks the pension which gladdened her heart 
and lessened her miseries was granted . A little 
Seminole girl in Florida met with an accident which 
threatened permanent disability. He sent her to a 



MATTHEW STAN LET ^UAT 303 

hospital and paid the expenses of the difficult opera- 
tion necessary for her restoration. In 1886, a 
political opponent in Lackawanna county was 
thrown from a carriage and fractured his skull. 
Learning upon inquiry that his resources were nar- 
row, Mr. Quay sent the noted surgeon Dr. Agnew 
from Philadelphia to Scranton upon a special train 
to minister to him, and through an agent still living 
who with tears in his eyes discloses the incident, 
himself met the large expenditure which in all 
probability saved a life. A great master of English 
fiction in one of the strongest of his novels with a 
skill which only comes with long discipline has 
woven a scene, the deep pathos of which appeals to 
the sympathies of every reader. An incumbent who 
has done many kindly deeds, worn with age and 
seeing that his end is approaching, is called upon by 
the Archdeacon. At the interview, which ensues, 
the incumbent tells that he is soon to die and asks 
not for prayer and absolution, but that the living be 
given to a clergyman of the neighborhood who has 
been weighed down with many trials and burdens. 
The Archdeacon himself somewhat gross and 
worldly, overcome by the situation, kneels and 



304 MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAT 

kisses the old man's hand in mute recognition of 
superior worth. What Anthony Trollope devised 
in romance in an effort to exemplify the most ex- 
alted spirit of self abnegation was realized in the 
events of actual life. When the clouds began to 
settle down over Mr. Quay and their gloom steadily 
deepened, he sent for his private secretary, who had 
long been at his side and knew his every want, pre- 
dicted his own death in the near future, and while he 
still had the strength, provided for his attendant an 
employment on which he could depend. The good 
and brave old heart deliberately denied himself the 
comfort and assistance which he needed more than 
ever before and accepted untrained help in order that 
one who had been near and useful to him should not 
suffer. Will Pennsylvania ever fully understand how 
large in character, as well as in strength, was this 
statesman she has lost ! The time has gone by and 
the harvest we might have garnered, had we only 
known, will never be ours. The past is rolled up as 
a scroll. In the legend from Norseland the strange 
bird which the dull and grubbing flock pecked at 
and abused one day rose aloft upon strong pinion 
and soared away to the distant ether to return to 



MATTHEW STANLEY ^UAY 305 

them no more. "It might have been" are the sad- 
dest of sad words. It is all too late for us to reap, 
too late even to bend over as did the Archdeacon to 
kiss his hand and acknowledge our shortcomings, but 
we still may implore for him that peace for which 
he uttered his last eloquent prayer and which we 
ever denied to him while he was upon earth. 



THE DEDICATION OF 
THE CAPITOL 



[October 4, 1906.] 



I 



"^HE capitol is much more than the building 
in which the Legislature holds its sessions, 
the courts sit in judgment, and the execu- 
tive exercises his authority. It is a concrete mani- 
festation of the importance and power of the state 
and an expression of its artistic development. In- 
telligent observers who look upon the structure and 
examine the proportions, the arrangements and the 
ornamentation are enabled to divine at what stage 
in the advance of civilization the people have ar- 
rived, and to determine with sufficient accuracy 
what have been their achievements in the past and 
what are their aspirations in the future. 

The commission charged with the duty of 
erecting this capitol and those who have had re- 
sponsibility in connection with it have felt that in 



THE DEDICATION OF THE CAPITOL 307 

architecture and appointments the outcome ought 
to be worthy of the commonwealth. They have 
not forgotten the essential and unique relation which 
Pennsylvania has borne in the development of our 
national life: that in our first capitol the govern- 
ment of the United States had its birth ; that during 
ten years of the early and uncertain existence of 
that government she gave it a home; that since its 
origin what has ever been accepted as the "Penn- 
sylvania idea" has been the dominant political prin- 
ciple of its administration, and that its present 
unparalleled material prosperity rests finally in large 
measure upon the outcome of her furnaces and 
mines. 

Nor have they forgotten that the thought of 
William Penn, enunciated over two centuries ago 
and rewritten around the dome of this capitol, has 
become the fundamental principle of our national 
constitution, acknowledged now by all men as ax- 
iomatic truth. 

There is a sermon which the many Americans 
who hie hither in the future years to study chaste art 
expressed in form, as to-day they go to the Parthe- 
non and St. Peter's, to the cathedrals of Antwerp 



3o8 THE DEDICATION OF THE CAPITOL 

and Cologne, will be enabled to read in these stones 
of polished marble and hewn granite. When 
Moses set out to build "an altar under the hill and 
twelve pillars," he beforehand " wrote all the words 
of the Lord." Let us take comfort in the belief 
that in like manner this massive and beautiful build- 
ing, which we have in our late time erected, will be 
for an example and inspiration to all the people, en- 
couraging them in pure thoughts, and inciting them 
to worthy deeds. Let us bear in mind the injunc- 
tion of the far-seeing founder of the province, which 
made it indeed, as he hoped, the seed of a nation — 
''that we may do the thing that is truly wise and 
just." 

On behalf of the commonwealth, as its chief 
executive, I accept this capitol, and now, with pride, 
with faith, and with hope, I dedicate it to the pub- 
lic use and to the purposes for which it was designed 
and constructed. 



THE PENNSYLVANIA 
DUTCHMAN 

AND WHEREIN HE HAS EXCELLED 

[Written for the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 
January, 1899.] 

THE following article has purposely been put 
in definite and succinct phraseology. It is 
possible that some of the statements may be 
modified by subsequently ascertained facts, but the 
effect of the paper cannot be overthrown by mere 
generalities. If ever Pennsylvania shall receive due 
credit for her unequalled influence and achievement, 
it will be when her writers and talkers — historical, 
literary, and political — shall cease their efforts to 
belittle that accomplishment in which they think 
they and theirs have had no part. A wider knowl- 
edge of themselves and their antecedents may also 
disclose a nearer relation to events of importance in 
her history, due to the Pennsylvania Dutchman, 
than they at present recognize. 



3IO THE PENNSTLVANIA DUTCHMAN 

1. In 1 615 Hendrickson, a Dutchman, first 
sailed up the Zuydt river and saw the site of Phila- 
delphia. 

2. In 1662 Pieter Cornelius Plockhoy, who 
subsequently died at Germantown, laid the founda- 
tion of our literature and history by publishing the 
first book by a resident concerning the country bor- 
dering on the Zuydt river, later the Delaware. 

3. In 1688 Francis Daniel Pastorius, Dirck op 
den Graeff, Abraham op den Graeff, and Gerhard 
Hendricks, by a public protest, made the first effort 
in America to overthrow the institution of slavery. 

4. In 1690 William Rittenhouse built the first 
paper-mill in America on a branch of the Wissa- 
hickon creek. 

5. In 1692 Francis Daniel Pastorius published 
his "Four Treatises," the earliest original American 
scientific work. 

6. Among the immigrants to Pennsylvania 
prior to the Revolution were only two of the Euro- 
pean nobility, Count Zinzendorf, of Bethlehem, and 
Baron Stiegel, of Manheim. 

7. "The town of Lancaster, a place at that 
time (1750) remarkable for its wealth, and which 



AND IF HEREIN HE HAS EXCELLED 311 

had the reputation of possessing the best and most 
intelligent society in America. It was chiefly in- 
habited by Germans, who, of all people in the prac- 
tice of emigrating, carry along with them the 
greatest stock of knowledge and accomplishments."* 

8. The most eminent scholars among the early 
emigrants to America were Francis Daniel Pastorius, 
who wrote fluently in eight languages, and Henry 
Bernhard Koster, who had translated the Bible 
from the Septuagint Greek version, both of Ger- 
mantown. 

9. On the 24th of September, 1734, the 
Schwenkfelders established their Gedachtniss Tag, 
or Memorial day, to commemorate their escape 
from persecution, and they have observed it ever 
since, an event without parallel. 

10. In 1743 Christopher Saur published his 
quarto Bible, the first in a European language in 
America. The Bible was published three times in 
German in America before it appeared in English. 

11. In 1 744 Saur published his first Testa- 
ment. The Testament was printed seven times in 
German in America before it appeared in English. 

*John Gait's "Life of West," 1816, p. 47. 



312 THE PENNSYLVANIA DUTCHMAN 

12. In 1764 Saur began the publication of 
the "Geistliches Magazien," the first religious mag- 
azine in America. 

13. Saur was the earliest type-founder in 
America. 

14. In 1 8 14 the Bible was first published west 
of the Alleghenies by Frederick Goeb, of Somerset, 
in German. 

15. In 1749 was published, at Ephrata, Van 
Braght's " Martyrer Spiegel," historical, biograph- 
ical, and theological, the most extensive literary 
production of the colonies. 

16. The earliest original American essay upon 
music is the preface to the "Turtel Taube," printed 
at Ephrata in 1747. 

17. The earliest American work upon peda- 
gogy was the Schul Ordnung, written by Christo- 
pher Dock in 1754 and printed in 1770. 

I 8. The earliest American essay upon etiquette 
was Dock's "Hundert Sitten Regeln," published in 
1764. 

19. The earliest American bibliography was 
the catalogue of the works of the Schwenkfelders. 

20. The first contribution of real estate to the 



JND WHEREIN HE HAS EXCELLED 313 

Pennsylvania Hospital was made by Matthias Kop- 
lin, of Perkiomen. 

21. The first approximately accurate calcula- 
tion of the distance of the earth from the sun was 
made by David Rittenhouse in 1769. Of him 
Thomas Jefferson said : " He has not, indeed, made 
a world, but he has approached nearer its maker 
than any man who has lived from the creation to 
this day." 

22. The first Continental treasurer was Michael 
Hillegas. 

23. The president of the first national con- 
gress was Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg. 

24. The first force to reach George Washington 
after he assumed command at Cambridge, in 1775, 
was a company from York county, Pennsylvania, 
under Lieutenant Henry Miller, which had marched 
over five hundred miles. 

2 5 . The first force to reach Abraham Lincoln at 
Washington in 1861 was composed of five companies 
from Reading, Allentown, Pottsville and Lewistown. 

26. George Washington was first called the 
"Father of his Country" in a German almanac 
printed at Lancaster in 1779. 



314 THE PENNSYLVANIA DUTCHMAN 

27. "The schools for young men and women 
at Bethlehem and Nazareth, under the direction of 
the people called Moravians, are upon the best es- 
tablishment of any schools in America."* 

28. The earliest American book on entomol- 
ogy was published by Frederick V. Melsheimer, at 
Hanover, York county, Pennsylvania, in 1806. 
Thomas Say calls him "The parent of entomology 
in this country." 

29. "The first premium for excellency in 
printing was adjudged by the Pennsylvania Manu- 
facturing Society to the publishers of a book in the 
German language in the inland town of Lancaster. "f 

30. The richest agricultural county in the 
United States, according to the returns of the last 
census, is Lancaster county in Pennsylvania. 

3 1 . The Wistar parties, the best known of 
early social events in Philadelphia, were established 
by Dr. Caspar Wistar. 

32. Simon Snyder, Joseph Hiester, John An- 
drew Shulze, George Wolf, Joseph Ritner, Francis 
Rahn Shunk, William Bigler, John F. Hartranft 

* Payne's ** Universal Geography," 1798. 

f Tench Coxc's «* View of the United States," 1794. 



JND WHEREIN HE HAS EXCELLED 315 



and James A. Beaver have been governors of Penn- 
sylvania. 

33. Of the two largest telescopes in the world 
that in California was erected by James Lick, of 
Lebanon, Pa., and that in Chicago, by Charles T. 
Yerkes, of Philadelphia. 

34. Leidy in science. Gross in surgery. Pepper 
in medicine, and Cramp in shipbuilding have 
reached the highest rank. 

35. As a merchant, no American has ever sur- 
passed John Wanamaker. 

36. The Germans "have schools and meet- 
ing-houses in almost every township through the 
province, and have more magnificent churches and 
other places of worship in the city of Philadelphia 
itself than those of all other persuasions added to- 
gether."* 

37. The earliest Pennsylvania history of the 
Revolution was written by Colonel Bernard Hubley, 
and published at Northumberland in 1806. 

38. The earliest original Pennsylvania school- 
book was the primer of Francis Daniel Pastorius, 
published in 1698. 

* Answer to an invidious pamphlet, 1755, p. 73. 



3i6 THE PENNSYLVANIA DUTCHMAN 

39. Our knowledge of the language, manners, 
and customs of the aborigines of Pennsylvania is 
mainly due to the Moravians Zeisberger and Hecke- 
welder. 

40. From 1732 to 1760 our relations with 
the Indians were conducted by Conrad Weiser. 

4 1 . The savages who defeated the Englishman 
Braddock in 1755 were overthrown by the Swiss- 
German Bouquet in 1764, 

42. On the 17th of Ninth month, 1686, be- 
fore the provincial council, " The Petition of Abra- 
ham op den Graeff was read for ye Gov'rs promise 
to him should make the first and finest pece of lin- 
nen cloath."* 

43. Before the Revolutionary war there were 
more newspapers printed in German in Pennsylvania 
than in English. 

44. The earliest effort in Pennsylvania in be- 
half of the adoption of the federal constitution was 
a petition from two hundred and fifty of the resi- 
dents of Germantown.f 

45. Of the nineteen members of the Pennsyl- 

* "Colonial Records," Vol. I, p. 193. 
t Lloyd's ''Debates," Vol. I, p. 84. 



AND WHEREIN HE HAS EXCELLED 317 

vania Assembly who voted against the submission of 
that constitution to a vote of the people, not one 
was a German, and of the forty-three who voted in 
favor of it, twelve were Germans.'^ 

46. When Whittier wrote, — 

"Thank God for the token! one lip is still free — 
One spirit untrammel'd — unbending one knee ! 
Like the oak of the mountain, deep-rooted and firm, 
Erect, when the multitude bends to the storm ; 
When traitors to Freedom, and Honor and God, 
Are bow'd at an Idol polluted with blood ; 
When the recreant North has forgotten her trust. 
And the lip of her honor is low in the dust, — 
Thank God, that one man from the shackle has broken ! 
Thank God, that one man as z. freeman, has spoken!" 

he referred to Governor Joseph Ritner, of Pennsyl- 
vania. 

47. Whittier's Pennsylvania Pilgrim was Fran- 
cis Daniel Pastorius. 

48. When Thomas Buchanan Read wrote, — 

"Then from his patriot tongue of flame 
The startling words of freedom came. 
The stirring sentences he spake 
Compelled the heart to glow or quake, 

^Lloyd's "Debates," Vol. I, p. 135. 



3i8 THE PENNSYLVANIA DUTCHMAN 

And rising on his theme's broad wing, 
And grasping in his nervous hand 
The imaginary battle-brand. 
In face of death he dared to fling 
Defiance to a tyrant king," 

he referred to General Peter Muhlenberg. 



JOHANN GOTTFRIED 
SEELIG 



AND THE 



HYMN-BOOK OF THE HERMITS OF THE 
WISSAHICKON 

[Written for the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 
October, 1901.] 

SUBSTANTIALLY all heretofore known con- 
cerning the learned enthusiasts who were 
called the Hermits of the Wissahickon and 
the Society of the Woman in the Wilderness can 
be found in the "Settlement of Germantown" and 
the biography of Hendrick Pannebecker. The 
sources of information there used were to a large 
extent the works of Seidensticker and Sachsc. So 
far as known, there was only one manuscript extant 
in the handwriting of Kelpius, his journal, in the pos- 
session of the Wistar family, and all of the produc- 
tions of Seelig had been lost. In the " Vitae Theo- 



320 JOHANN GOTTFRIED SEELIG 

logorum Altorphinorum," by Gustave George Zelt- 
ner, published at Nuremberg in 1722, may be 
gathered a few additional facts of interest concern- 
ing the early settlers of Germantown. Pastorius 
was a student at Altdorf from 1668 to 1670, and 
it was there that his thesis upon law was printed. 
In Zeltner's work are portraits and biographies of 
John Weinman, Luke Frederick Reinhart, John 
Conrad Durr, and John Conrad Schwaeger, four of 
the teachers of Pastorius. There is also a reference 
to a song written by Dr. Johann Wilhelm Petersen, 
one of the members of the Frankfort Land Com- 
pany. From it we learn that the book of Kelpius 
entitled "Scylla Theologica" went through two 
editions. There are also a portrait and biography 
of Dr. John Fabricius, whom Kelpius called his 
master, and under whom he studied. 

It was in a letter to Fabricius that Kelpius told 
the story of William Penn and the Indian chief 
narrated in the "Settlement of Germantown," page 
252. Fabricius had written to Kelpius telling him 
of the report current in Germany that he had sur- 
rendered his theological tenets and become a 
Quaker, in reply to which he wrote a denial in one 



JOHANN GOTTFRIED SEELIG 321 

of his few letters we possess. Thereupon Fabricius 
wrote a vindication of him, which appeared in the 
second edition of the "Scylla Theologica." 

A recent discovery made in rather a remark- 
able manner has added materially to our store of 
information concerning the Hermits of the Wissa- 
hickon, and constitutes an interesting bibliographical 
incident relating to the earliest period of Pennsyl- 
vania history. 

In the summer of 1894 I bought at a public 
sale at the house of one of the Schwenkfelder 
people, named Kriebel, on the Skippack creek, in 
Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, a number of 
ancient books and papers, which were sent to my 
office in Philadelphia, After all that seemed to be 
of any importance had been selected, a residuum of 
what was regarded as rubbish lay exposed upon the 
top of a box for two years. Among the neglected 
material was a German manuscript volume about 
eight inches in length and four in width, whose 
title and front leaves had been lost, and which con- 
tained at the end a crude verse in a rude hand, 
written in 1772. It happened that I gave up my 
office, and the rubbish was collected by the express- 



322 JOHANN GOTTFRIED SEELIG 

man and taken to my home, where it lay on a shelf 
unnoticed for four years longer. One day in 1 900 the 
the words **Der einsamen Turteltauben," the peculiar 
language of the Dunkers of Ephrata, written on one 
of the pages of this volume, casually caught my 
attention and led me to give it a careful study. I 
found that the turtle-dove was singing "in the silent 
woods," and, fortunate chance! one of the hymns 
written in the book was dated in July, 1707, nearly 
forty years before the establishment of the commu- 
nity at Ephrata, and was signed "J. G. S." There 
was only one other set of people in early Pennsylvania 
life who used this phraseology, and upon a compari- 
son of the unusual penmanship of the early hymns 
with that of the journal of Kelpius, the revelation 
became certain and complete. The hymn-book of 
the Hermits of the Wissahickon had been happily 
and strangely recovered. 

Kelpius wrote in it nineteen hymns, and at the 
end of the book made an index of them. Of these 
there are seven entire, parts of two others, and the 
first lines of all. Another of the hermits, not iden- 
tified with certainty, but who may have been Henry 
Bernhard Koster, the learned translator of the 



JOHANN GOTTFRIED SEELIG 323 

Septuagint, added thirteen hymns. Then Johann 
Gottfried Seehg wrote four hymns, and fortunately 
signed and dated one of them in 1707. They consti- 
tute the only productions and the only manuscript of 
Seelig which the ravages of time have spared. The 
subsequent history of the volume can only be con- 
jectured. Treasured as long as the community lasted, 
and then carried away from Germantown and trusted 
to chance, it fell into the hands of some person who 
made it the convenient receptacle for the meaningless 
verses of 1772 which misled me, and was thereafter 
knocked about the garrets of farm-houses, where it 
lost its title-page and twelve of its leaves. It is now 
bound in crushed levant and rests in a morocco case. 
One of the hymns written by Seelig is here trans- 
lated, and, being among the earliest of American 
poetical productions, is extremely interesting. It 
has much of the tone of a modern love-song. The 
dove is cooing for its mate. Christ is a bridegroom 
who is called to hasten to the awaiting soul. Each 
stanza suggests one single simple thought, which is 
emphasized by a descriptive word in the final 
lengthened line. The attempt has been made to pre- 
serve the rhyme, measure, and spirit as well as the 



324 JOHANN GOTTFRIED SEELIG 

ideas of the original, a task rendered more difficult 
because of the brevity of the lines. 



Der einsahmcn Turtel-tauben be- The moving Song of Complaint of 

wegliches Klag-lied am orte ihrer the Solitary Turtle Dove in the place 

probiriing im stillen biische der ge- of its trial. Sung in the still woods 

duld gesungen von J. G. S. of patience by J. G. S. 



1 . Wo bistu mein Taublein ! 
Mein siissestes Englein ? 

Ich sehn mich mit schmertzen, 
Und ruff dich im hertzen. 
Wo bistu mein Taublein ? 
Ach kom doch mein tr'ostendes 
Englein. 

2. Sieh wie ich hier walle, 
Stets nahe dem falle, 
Ich mercke die tiicke, 
U. sehe die stricke, 

Wo bistu mein Taublein ? 
Kom eylend mein rettendes Eng- 
lein. 

3. Hor wie ich dir klage. 
In eusserster plage, 

Der Feind mir den glauben 
Fast alle wil raiiben. 
Wo bistu mein Taublein ? 
Ach kom doch hertz-starckendes 
Englein. 

4. Im finstern ich sitze 

In zweiffel-angst schwitze ; 
Mein weg ist verborgen, 
Mich quahlen viel sorgen ; 



My Dovelet, where art thou ? 
Sweet Angel, why part thou ? 
My heart is so painful. 
Oh, be not disdainful. 
My Dovelet, where art thou ? 
Come, Angel, consoling my heart 
now. 

See how I am heaving, 
I stand here bereaving, 
I watch all the threading 
Of nets that are spreading. 
My Dovelet, where art thou ? 
Haste, Angel, deliver my heart 
now. 

Oh ! hear me complaining 
In sharpest of paining, 
The fiend is me reaving 
Of faith and believing. 
My Dovelet, where art thou ? 
Come, Angel, and strengthen my 
heart now. 

In darkness I'm sitting. 
With doubt I am splitting. 
My way is all hidden. 
No care is forbidden. 



JOHANN GOTTFRIED SEELIG 325 



Wo bistu mein Taublein ? 
Ach kom doch erleuchtendes Eng- 
lein. 



My Dovelet, where art thou ? 
Come, Angel, enlighten my heart 
now. 



5. Es lebet die Seele 
In einsahmer Hohle 
Ohn freude, ohn friede. 
Von anfechtung miide, 
Kom paarendes Taublein, 
Ach kom doch erfreuendes Eng- 
lein. 



5. My soul is but living 
In lonely misgiving. 
The time is but dreary. 
With struggles I'm weary. 
Come, Dovelet, and mate me. 
Come, Angel, rejoicing to sate 
me. 



6. Irrleitende Hchter, 
Verstellte gesichter 
Mich woUen bethoren 
Von warheit abfiihren 
Wo bistu mein Taublein ? 
Ach kom doch zvarhafttiges Eng- 
lein. 



6. False beacons misguiding. 
False faces deriding. 
Do often bewray me. 
From true ways betray me. 
My Dovelet, where art thou ? 
Come, Angel, the true way im- 
part now. 



7. Ruch fiihl ich die Hiebe, 
Der fleischlichen Liebe ; 
Wen die mich verwunden 
So bistu verschwunden : 
Wo bistu mein Taublein ? 
Kom lieb mich reinliebendes Eng- 
lein. 



7- I feel all the glowing 
Of lust in me growing ; 
If fails my endeavor 
I lose thee forever. 
My Dovelet, where art thou ? 
Come, Angel, clean love in thy 
heart now. 



8. Bey alle dem Kummer 

Fall ich doch in Schlummer 
Die Tragheit mich driicket 
Der SchlafF mich beriicket ; 
Wo bistu mein Taublein ? 
Ach kom doch ermuntrendes Eng- 
lein. 



8. Oft sorrows encumber 
While lying in slumber. 
My sin is enduring 
And sleep is alluring. 
My Dovelet, where art thou? 
Come, Angel, awaken my heart 
now. 



326 JOHANN GOTTFRIED SEELIG 



9. Soil ich noch mehr klagen ? 
Von kummerniiss sagen ? 
O dass ich dich hette. 
In meinem hertz-bette ! 
Wo bistu mein Taublein ? 
Ach kom doch verborgenes Eng- 
lein. 



9. Why am I refraining. 
In sadness complaining ? 
Oh ! could I but hold thee 
And to my heart fold thee. 
My Dovelet, where art thou ? 
Come, Angel, and hide in my 
heart now. 



10. Du bist ja alleine 

Die lieb die ich meine : 
Dich will ich nur habcn 
Du kanst mich recht laben : 
Wo bistu mein Taublein ? 
Ach kom doch hertz-liebenstes 
Englein. 



10. For thee am I lonely, 
For thee I love only. 
And I must possess thee. 
And thou canst caress me. 
My Dovelet, where art thou ? 
Come, Angel, with love in thy 
heart now. 



11. Ach lass dich beschweren 
Die heissen hertz-zahren ! 
Zu kommen, zu eylen 
Nicht langer verweilen ! 
Wo bistu mein Taublein ? 
Ach kom doch erwunchetes Eng- 



11. Oh, why art thou keeping 
Thy hot tears from weeping ? 
Be coming and staying. 
No longer delaying. 
My Dovelet, where art thou ? 
Come, Angel, the wish of my 
heart now. 



12. Nun hier wil ich warten 
In deinem Creutz-garten 
Bey der gedult Myrrhen, 
Stets rufFen und girren : 
Wo bleibstu mein Taublein ? 
Kom paar dich, kom lieb mich 
mein Englein. 



12. Now here am I waiting. 
The Cross is inviting. 
By Myrrh is my wooing, 
Still calling and cooing. 
My Dovelet, I wait thee. 
My Angel, come love me, come 
mate thee. 



SOWER AND BEISSEL 

THE QUARREL BETWEEN CHRISTOPHER 
SOWER, THE GERMANTOWN PRINTER, 
AND CONRAD BEISSEL, FOUNDER AND 
VORSTEHER OF THE CLOISTER AT 
EPHRATA. 

[Written for the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography^ 
April, 1888.] 

THE personal controversy between these two 
remarkable men, which became bitter and 
caused, as we are told, "a great uproar 
through the land," certainly had a curious origin. 
Perhaps in no locality other than provincial Penn- 
sylvania did ever so much commotion come about 
through the interpretation of the stanzas of a hymn. 
The results of the quarrel were as important for the 
bibliography of Pennsylvania as its origin was curi- 
ous. It was not long afterward before the Dunker 



328 THE SOWER AND BEISSEL ^UJRREL 

monks at Ephrata established a printing-press of 
their own, from which issued a mass of Uterature 
interesting and attractive to the antiquarian, the 
poet, the musician, the theologian, and the historian, 
culminating in the production of the most immense 
literary work of colonial America. The hymn, 
whose interpretation led up to such discussion and 
to such important consequences thereafter, is num- 
bered 400, and may be found upon page 450 of the 
" Zionitischer Weyrauch's Hiigel oder Myrrhen 
Berg, &c., Germantown, C. Sauer, 1739," the first 
book from the press of Sower, and the first book 
printed in German type in America. This book 
contains six hundred and ninety-one hymns, some 
of them collected from other sources, but most of 
them written at the cloister by Conrad Beissel and 
other inmates of the institution. All of the infor- 
mation we have had hitherto concerning the contro- 
versy is contained in the following extract from the 
Chronicon Ephratense^ that invaluable, quaint, and 
almost inaccessible record of the happenings of the 
cloister. It says, — 

" Now the printing of the beforementioned 
hymn-book was pushed along, but toward the close 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL ^ARREL 329 

of it an affair happened which caused a great uproar 
through the land, and which will now be narrated. 
The printer Sower had become acquainted with the 
Vorsteher in Germany during an awakening, and 
regarded him as a God-fearing man, but when his 
foresight placed him at the head of a great awaken- 
ing on the Conestoga the good soul began to suspect 
that he was trying to be a Pope. In addition, Sower 
was secretly displeased with the Vorsteher because 
he had taken the former's wife, who had separated 
from her husband, under his protection, and made 
her sub-prioress in the Sisters' house. At that time 
opinions in the land as to the Vorsteher's person 
were divided. The most and greatest part held him 
for a great witchmaster, and things which had hap- 
pened certainly had this appearance. It has already 
been narrated that the spirit which controlled him 
at times made him invisible, of which, by the way, 
this may be told. A justice sent a constable after 
him with a warrant who took with him an assistant 
named Martin Groff. As they came to the house 
they saw him go in with a pitcher of water. They 
followed after him, and one held the door while 
the other searched the house from top to hot- 



330 THE SOWER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 

torn, but no Vorsteher could be found. But when 
they went out and were some distance off they saw 
him go out. 

"But his brethren, who were about him daily 
and might have seen many such things, were of the 
other opinion, and thought as the Jews about John 
whether he was not Christ. Even Brother Prior 
Onesimus said he was much impressed with such 
thoughts, all of which was known to the printer. 
When in printing the hymn-book the hymn was 
reached beginning, *Weil die Wolcken-Seul auf- 
bricht,' he was convinced that in the 37th verse 
the Vorsteher intended himself. He called the at- 
tention of the proof-reader to the place, but this 
one asked him whether he believed there was only 
one Christ. This made him so angry that he 
wrote a sharp letter to the Vorsteher, pointing out 
to him his spiritual pride. The Vorsteher, who 
in things of this sort never was backward, sent a 
short answer of this import: 'Answer not a fool 
according to his folly,' etc. 'As vinegar upon nitre, 
so is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart.' 
Prov. XXV. 20. This letter excited the good man's 
ire, and he determined to avenge himself for the 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL ^ARREL 331 

affront. So he gave out a writing against the 
Vorsteher, in which he mentioned what a remark- 
able combination of stars ruled over the Vorsteher, 
and how each planet gave him its influence. From 
Mars he got his great sternness, from Jupiter his 
graciousness, Venus caused the women to seek after 
him, and Mercury taught him comedian tricks. 
He even found in the name Conradus Beisselus the 
number of the beast 666. In this way the rela- 
tions between the printer and the community at 
Ephrata were for many years broken, and were 
not again restored until the printer's wife returned 
to him. From that time on until his death he 
lived on good terms with the Vorsteher and all of 
the Solitary (Einsamen), and by many acts of kind- 
ness won their lasting regard." 

Recently, however, I have come into the pos- 
session of a hitherto unseen and unheard-of little 
publication whose full title is : " Ein Abgenothigter 
Bericht : oder, zum ofFtern begehrte Antwort, denen 
darnach fragenden dargelegt. In sich haltende: 
zwey Brieffe und deren Ursach. Dem noch ange- 
hanget worden eine Historie von Doctor Schotte 
und einige Brieffe von demselben zu unseren Zeiten 



332 THE SOWER AND BEISSEL ^UJRREL 

nothig zu erwegen. Germantown: Gedruckt bey 
Christoph Saur. 1739." 

It is Sower's own account of the controversy 
and contains the correspondence between himself 
and Beissel to which reference is made in the 
Chronicon Ephratense. Throwing light as it does 
upon the establishment of the earliest German 
printing-press, upon the publication of the Wey- 
rauch's Hiigel, and upon the characters and beliefs 
of these two conspicuous figures among the Ger- 
man settlers of Pennsylvania, it is an important 
contribution to our information. I have translated 
it entire, except the appendix relating to other 
matters, and have endeavored to render the hymn 
in English verse, preserving as correctly as possible 
the spirit and versification of the original. The 
text alone would hardly seem to justify the crit- 
icisms of Sower, but when we view it with a 
knowledge of the remarkable influence wielded 
by Beissel over the monks and nuns of Ephrata, 
and the intense mysticism of the doctrines in- 
culcated there, we are apt to conclude that 
there was some foundation for the interpretation 
he put upon it. Even the writer of the Chron- 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL ^UJRREL 333 

icon himself says, "Since he (Beissel) was a Saviour 
of his people and their transgressions were loaded 
upon his back it need not be wondered that he 
let some of his hard priest-like position appear 
in this hymn, but it was hidden so reasonably 
in figures of speech and put in such doubtful 
shape that no one could know for sure whom he 
meant." 



An Extorted Statement or An often re- 
quested Answer laid before those asking 
FOR IT. Containing two letters and 

THEIR CAUSE. To WHICH IS APPENDED A HIS- 
TORY OF Dr. Schotte and some letters 

FROM HIM USEFUL FOR INSTRUCTION IN OUR 
TIMES. GeRMANTOWN. PrINTED BY ChRIS- 
TOPH SaUR. 1739- 

Preface. 

To those who have so often, as well verb- 
ally as through letter, desired to know the ground 
and cause for two writings about a hymn lately 
printed, I give the following information through 
the press, in order to avoid much correspondence. 



334 THE SOWER AND BEISSEL ^UJRREL 

The affair happened in this way: Through the stars 
which ruled my birth or through nature I received 
some facility in acquiring the different kinds of han- 
diwork without much trouble. I devoted this skill to 
the welfare of my neighbor, for the most part be- 
cause it was my disposition so to do and partly with- 
out considering about it. I was finally seized with 
an earnest desire to dedicate the remaining period of 
my life to my God and his son Jesus Christ, and 
with my little strength to honor his service and truly 
to do it in such a way that my fellow-men should 
be benefitted by it; but only upon the condition that 
it should please God and be acceptable to him. God 
opened a way for this purpose by the aid of one* 
who was of a like opinion with me in this matter, 
and I secured a German printing-press. But before 
it reached me, it was strongly impressed upon my 
mind that often, in our efforts to do good, the enemy 
accomplishes his purpose as much as God himself is 
served. Therefore, I then prayed earnestly to God 
that he would not suffer it that I unwittingly, much 
less knowingly, should be such an unholy instrument. 
Scarcely were my materials on hand, before a hymn- 

* Jacob Gass, a Dunker. 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 33s 

book, which had long been desired by many people, 
consisting of many choice beautiful hymns for the 
instruction of God-seeking souls, was ready, and I 
eagerly undertook to print fifteen hundred copies, 
according to the request of the publisher. And, 
after I had seen the parts and the register, I should 
have been pleased if I had printed instead two 
thousand copies, because I believed they would soon 
fall into the hands of those who wanted them, and 
a new edition would be difficult to publish. How- 
ever, the edition remained as it was at first determined. 
I took hold of the work with loving earnestness, and 
gave every effort to have it soon finished. But as one 
foolish hymn after another came before me, such as 
I did not think suitable, I sometimes shook my head 
a little, but always with patience. At this time Peter 
Miller* came to me and said, "Amateur poets some- 
times do such work." When I inquired concerning 
the author, I found that my conjecture was not in- 
correct, as his life and walk and the fruits of his 
belief show. Still it was not my affair. But pre- 
sently there came a special command that certain 
hymns, which were by no means the poorest, should 

* The Prior at Ephrata, whose cloister name was Brother Jabez. 



236 THE SOJVER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 

be left out and certain others should be inserted, that 
this one which hereafter follows should be the first in 
the Rubric, and that since already another stood 
before it, there must be a change made, and it must 
be commenced with a larger letter, and the former 
initial be taken away, as if it were something im- 
portant. It was left like all the others of its kind, 
in its place. But as so many have asked for the 
reasons and so many false reports have been scattered 
far and wide among which shrewdness itself could not 
detect the right color, I have determined to publish 
untouched and unchanged first the hymn itself; and 
secondly my letter, but only in order that the little 
calf may be seen away from the really spiritual and 
worthy hymns and that the wrong may be seen, and 
then the answer which I thereupon received from 
Conrad Beissel without his signature, and finally 
some thoughts concerning it for the information of 

the reader. 

Christoph Saur. 

Germantown, Sep. 24, 1739 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL ^UJRREL 337 



THE HYMN. 



Weil die Wolcken-Seul aufbricht. 
Die Gott Israel zum licht 
Vorgestellel, drauf zu sehn 
Wenn sie sollen welter gehn. 

Darum legt die Hiitten ein 
Und gebt acht auf ihren Schein, 
Zu verfolgen unsre Reiss 
Auf des hohesten Geheiss. 

Es ist Zeit wir wollen gehn, 
Und nicht langer stille stehn, 
Weil die Seule geht voran 
Und uns leuchtet auf der Bahn, 

Wer nun wiirde stille stehn 
Weil die Wolcke fort thut gehn, 
Wiird sich scheiden von dem Band 
Und von Gott verheissnem Land. 

Nun wir Mara sind vorbey. 
In der grossen Wiisteney, 
Wird mit vieler Segens-Lust 
Nun erfiillet Hertz und Brust. 

Doch, wenn wir nicht halten Wacht 
Auf die Seule in der Nacht, 
Die im Feuer leuchtet fiir 
Den Weg, so verlieren wir. 

Doch well es nun ist an dem, 
Dass wir wieder angenehm 
Unserm Gott, zu seinem Preiss, 
Kommen wir aufF sein Geheiss. 

Und erwarten seinen Rath, 
Wie er es beschlossen hat, 
Und auf weitern Unterricht, 
Wie und wozu wir verpflicht. 



While the cloud-like pillar gleams. 
Which through God for Israel beams 
So that all may easily know 
When the time arrives to go. 

Leave your camp now out of sight. 
Fix your eyes upon the light. 
Follow in your journey's course 
Promptings from the highest source. 

It is time for us to go. 
Be no longer still and slow. 
While the pillar goes before. 
Lights the path we travel o'er. 

He who longer still would stand. 
Follows not the pillar brand. 
Severs him from all the host — 
Promised land to him is lost. 

Now we hard on Mara press 
In the lonely wilderness. 
Every heart and each man's breast 
Fill with hope that he is blest. 

If we keep not careful watch. 
Fail the pillar's gleam to catch. 
Throwing light upon the way 
Surely then we go astray. 

If we now our God would please. 
If we would our joys increase. 
His commands we will obey 
Honor him in every way. 

In the order of our quests 
Follow only his behests. 
Follow whatsoe'er befalls 
Where the voice of duty calls. 



338 THE SOWER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 



Soil es wahren noch viel Jahr, 
Dass wir durch so viel Gefahr 
Mussen wallen in dem Stand 
Auf dem Weg zum Vatterland, 

So woll jedes bleiben treu 
In der langen Wusteney 
Dencken, dass nicht Gottes schuld 
Sondern vielmehr seine Huld. 

Die uns durch so lange Jahr 
Selbst will machen offenbahr 
Was in unserm Hertzen ist, 
Und wie bald man sein vergisst. 

Wann es geht nach unserm Sinn, 
Meynen wir es sey Gewinn, 
Und vergessen Gottes Eyd, 
Und die grosse Seligkeit. 

Darum schenckt Gott anders ein, 
Als wir es vermuthen seyn, 
Speisst uns erst mit Bitterkeit, 
Eh er unser Hertz erfreut. 

Darum samnile dich aufs Neu, 
Israel, und sey getreu, 
Folge seiner Zeugen Licht, 
Das er in dir auffgericht. 

Sich jenes Israel an. 
Die gereisst nach Canaan, 
Wie sie Gott so lang versucht 
Unter seiner scharfFen Zucht. 

Vierzig Jahr sie musten gehn 
In so viel Versuchungs Weh'n, 
Oft ohn Wasser, oft ohn Brod, 
Bald geschlagen seyn von Gott. 



Should it be for many years 
That we still must suffer fears. 
Must we wander whence we stand 
On our way to Fatherland, 

Be ye steadfast in the stress 
Of the weary wilderness. 
Blame not God for what ye find — 
Rather think that he is kind. 

What we bear for many a year 
He will make entirely clear. 
What is deepest in our heart 
And how soon we all depart. 

When we have our wish secure 
Then we feel too safe and sure. 
Love of God we soon forget, 
Happiness we have not yet. 

But 'tis not as we suppose, 
God does otherwise dispose. 
Sends us first some bitterness 
Ere a joy our heart does bless. 

Gather then yourself anew, 
Israel, and be ever true. 
Seek the witness of his light 
That within will guide you right. 

Look upon that Isra-el 
Which to Canaan journeyed well 
How so long the Lord did urge 
With his very sharpest scourge. 

Forty years they went along. 
Felt the weight of biting thong. 
Wanting water, wanting bread. 
Driven by their God so dread. 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 339 



Bis die alle fielen hin, 
Und verdurben in dem Sinn 
Der Gedancken, nach dem Bild 
Womit ihre Lust erfiillt. 

Da sie nach so vielerley 
Lusternd wurden ohne Scheu 
Sich zu weiden ohne Noth 
Wurden sie gestrafFt von Gott. 

Dass der grossen Siinden-Macht 
Ihn zum EyfFer hat gebracht, 
Und er sie umkommen lies 
Durch der feurigen Schlangen-Biss. 

Alles dieses ist geschehn 
Ein exempel, dran zu sehn 
Dem nachkom'nden Israel, 
So betreten diese Stcll. 

Auf uns zielet dieser Rath, 
Den man dort geschen hat. 
Da inzwischen Gottes Trcu 
In der grossen Wiisteney. 

Sich erwiesen in dem Bund, 
Machte sein Erbarmung kund. 
That sie heilen von dem Biss 
Da cr sie ansehen liess. 

Ein erhohtes Schlangelein, 
Der so treue Diener sein 
Hat empfangcn den Befehl, 
Und gebracht auf ihre Stell. 

Sieh, oh wehrtes Israel ! 
Der du bist an jenes Stell 
Aufgekommen, dencke dran 
Was dich dieses lehren kan. 



Till at last they all succumb. 
Sense and spirit overcome. 
And in images they trust. 
Filled are they with sordid lust. 

Since they were so filled with lust. 
Shamelessly so placed their trust. 
Fed themselves without a need, 
God did punish them indeed. 

For his anger did begin 
At the grossness of their sin. 
And he let the serpent's fire 
Gather round them in his ire. 

This which happened long ago 
Is a warning for us now. 
An example that we may 
Show the Israel of to-day. 

And this counsel does disclose 
What each mortal surely knows. 
That God's loving tenderness 
Through the weary wilderness. 

In his promise did appear. 
And was made entirely clear. 
When he healed the serpent's bite. 
When he raised within their sight. 

Brazen serpent on a pole. 

Faithful servant of the soul, 

A partaker of his grace 

Who has brought them to the place. 

See ! oh, Israel ! good and true. 
What there is to say to you — 
You who, too, that place would reach 
Think of what it you can teach. 



340 THE SOWER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 



Und wie du auf deiner Reiss 
Bissher auf so manche Weiss 
Dich verschuldet im Gericht 
Wider deines Bundes-Pflicht. 

Und durch deine Ungedult 
Dich vergrifFen mit viel Schuld, 
Da du dich sehr hart gestellt 
Wider den, so Gott ervvahlt. 

Und mit Hohnen ihn verspott 
Gleich der bosen Siinder-Rott, 
Die nicht achten Gottes Ehr, 
Und nicht folgen seiner Lehr. 

Der vor dich getragen Leid 
In so vielem harten Streit, 
Must von dir verachtet seyn 
Unter so viel Trug und Schein. 

Der doch traget deine Last, 
Und dabey hat vvenig Rast, 
Und vertrit dich im Gericht 
Wenn des Herren Zorn anbricht. 

Der dir so viel Guts gethan 
Auf dem Weg nach Canaan, 
Und mit Gottes Lehr und Rath 
Dich sehr oft erquicket hat. 

Der dich aus der finstern Nacht 
Hat zu Gottes Licht gebracht. 
Von Egyptens Dienstbarkeit 
Und Pharaons Macht befreyt. 

Dass dir drauf ist worden kund 
Der so treue Gnaden-Bund, 
Durch die TaufFe in dem Meer, 
Da ersaufFt Pharonis Heer. 



How you often on the way 
Have been sought and found astray. 
On your duties how you slept. 
How your pledges were not kept. 

How impatient you have been. 
How you were inclined to sin. 
Hard the pains might God inflict 
Had he chosen to be strict. 

How with scorn you him abused. 
Like vile sinners him refused 
Who his honor never prized 
And his teachings have despised. 

Him who often suffered sore — 
Many a pang for you he bore. 
Who for you must be bewrayed. 
Oft by mean deceit betrayed. 

Who with burdens still is pressed 
From your loads has little rest. 
Pleads your cause in many ways. 
And the wrath of God allays. 

Who has done you good a store 
On the way to Canaan's shore. 
Kindled life within your soul. 
Brought you under God's control. 

Who has oft in darkest night 
Pointed you to heaven's light, 
From the might of Pharaoh saved. 
When in Egypt you have slaved. 

That for you it might be shown. 
Covenant of grace be known 
Through baptism on that coast 
Where old Pharaoh' s hosts were lost. 



THE SOfFER AND BEISSEL ^ARREL 341 



Wurde dorten jederman 
Heil, der nur that schauen an 
Die erhohte ehrne Schlang, 
Was solt dir denn machen bang. 

Weil des Menschen Sohn erhoht 
Und zu deinem Heil da steht, 
Wer ihn ansieht ohn Verdries, 
Wird geheilt vom Schlangen-Biss. 

Der sehr viele hat verwundt, 
Dass sie so viel Jahr und Stund 
Noch nicht bracht die wahre Frucht, 
Die doch Gott all Tage sucht. 

Dieses hat dir zugedacht 
Der zum oiFtern sonst veracht, 
Der dich liebet und vertritt, 
Und bey Gott um Gnade bitt. 

Sehet, Sehet, Sehet an ! 
Sehet, sehet an den Mann ! 
Der von Gott erhohet ist 
Der ist unser Herr und Christ. 

Der Sagts uns bestandig fiir : 
Kommet her und folget mir, 
Ich bin euer bestes Theil 
Wodurch ihr kont werden heil 

Er ist die erhohte Schlang 
Bey dem rauhen Weg und Gang, 
Durch die wird gezeiget an, 
Wodurch man genesen lean. 

Wann wir dann genesen seyn, 
Wird das Lager wieder rein, 
Und des Herren Gegenwart 
Kan uns leiten auf der Fahrt. 



Since each man is safe and sure. 
Should he look with eye secure 
On the snake raised up to view. 
Why should fear then weaken you? 

'Tis the Son of Man you see. 
For your safety raised is he. 
Who then looks without despite 
Cured is from serpent's bite — 

Bite that has so much alarmed. 
Has so many hurt and harmed. 
That though seeking night and day 
They have failed to find the way. 

This has he for you devised 
Whom you often have despised. 
Who yet loves and intercedes. 
And with God for mercy pleads. 

Look and look and look intent. 
See the man who here is meant. 
He is raised by God the high'st 
He's indeed our Lord and Christ. 

He is saying constantly : 
Come you here and follow me. 
I am your most helpful friend, 
I can save you in the end. 

He is the uplifted snake 
By the way which we must take 
Through which we may surely know 
How that we may better grow. 

When completed is the cure. 
Will the camp be clean and pure. 
And the presence of the Lord 
On the way will help afford. 



342 THE SOJVER AND BEISSEL ^UJRREL 



Und der Wolckcn-Seulen Gang 
Machen einen rechten Klang, 
Dass es schalle und erthdn, 
Und ausrufFe, fort zu gehcn. 

Diese Bahn ist uns gezeigt 
Von Gott, dcr sich zu uns neigt, 
Richtet auf sein Hiitt und Stadt 
Unter uns aus lauter Gnad 

Sind wir denn mit Gott versehn. 
So wird unser Thun bestehn, 
Und wir werden mit der Zeit 
Gehen ein zur Seligkeit. 

Darum freue dich aufs Neu, 
Israel, und sey getreu, 
Bleibcst du auf dieser Bahn 
So erreichst du Canaan. 



Then the cloud-like pillar starts. 
Rings resounding and departs. 
Calls aloud that we may know 
It is time for us to go. 

'Tis the banner God has set. 
He's inclined toward us yet. 
Raises o'er his holy place 
From the fulness of his grace. 

We shall have the Lord's support. 
All our work will be in sort. 
And as time grows less and less 
Go we on to happiness. 

Israel ! then rejoice anew. 
Steadfast be and good and true, 
To this banner hold you fast 
Canaan you will reach at last. 



The objections which I had to this hymn were 
as follows: The pillars of fire and clouds are the 
martial and mercurial spirit. Nearly all the words 
of the first four verses of the hymn say as much. 
Then his command to depend upon him and do 
nothing except what he says especially in the 14th 
and 23rd verses. In the 25th he complains that he 
is despised by his brethren as well as by the sinners, 
and that he had already brought them to God*s light, 
as is to be seen in the 31st verse. In the 33rd and 
34th, he makes the assertion, that if one should look 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL ^UJRREL 343 

upon him without despite he would already be free 
from the bite of the snake. In the 36th, he says, 
he who has made this little hymn, ought never to be 
despised. In the 37th, 38th, and 39th verses. Mer- 
cury springs to the front, and jumps upon the throne 
and cries, " Sehet, sehet," etc. And this stuff people 
are to sing ! Surely one's hair ought to stand upon 
end at such blasphemy if he were not stricken blind 
or mad. 

Now follows my letter to Conrad Beissel : 

I have until within the last few days been in 
hopes that the work which I did, and caused to be 
done, upon the hymn-book would redound to the 
honor of God, to whom I am under the greatest 
obligations for all that he has done for me and all 
creatures, and will still do through time and eternity, 
and I remain bound to Him even though I should 
see no good day more. It is his way that when we 
dismiss all which is not from Him He fills us with 
that which more concerns Him. The result is that 
we love all that is from Him, and have a hatred and 
horror for all that does not please Him. In the be- 



344 THE SOWER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 

ginning much remains concealed, while we are in 
the shoes of children as the saying is, which in the 
years of youth and manhood become as clear as day. 
I have therefore with patience overlooked some 
hymns, which I had rather sacrificed to Vulcan by 
throwing them into the fire. I thought something 
might be given to the first alphabet scholars as it 
were according to their ability and which they could 
grasp and that it would not be wise to break down 
the first rounds of the ladder. I have willingly let 
go what the amateur poets through vanity and sen- 
timent have brought together, especially since Brother 
Peter Miller said to me: "The worst soldiers are 
always put in the front rank." Taking this view of 
it I had nothing more to say. Afterward so much 
of wood, straw, stubble, and trash came that it went 
pretty hard with me. It was very deeply impressed 
upon me that each work should be a birth to appear 
in eternity, not in the lightness of the mercurial 
pictures drawn by men, but to stand in the clean way. 
However I remained in hope that something better 
would come in the future. A still greater misery 
befell me, to wit: In the beginning of the i6th 
Rubric or division there was placed a silly hymn 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 345 

which, on first reading through it, I considered to 
be among the stupid, amateur poetry and I wished 
that something better could be put in its place. In 
the 29th verse it runs: 

" Der doch traget deine Last 
Und dabei hat wenig Rast." 

There I stopped and read the remainder over 
again, but while I was away attending to some other 
business, it was printed. I was not at ease about it. 
I regarded it as among those great errors of which to- 
day the world is full and wished that it might still 
remain among those rejected. I thought if it should 
come, either here or in Germany or any where else, 
before the eyes of an enlightened spirit who has 
found and delights in God and his Saviour as the 
true rest, he might be deceived by such miserable 
stuff after such a magnificently brilliant title-page 
and I should be ashamed because of my negligence. 
I might perhaps be able to find excuses that would 
answer before men, but in my breast would burn a fire 
that would be quenched by no excuses. I thereupon 
asked Brother Samuel* whether he did not think 

*Samuel Eckerlin, whose cloister name was Brother Jephune and who 
later was driven from the Community. 



346 THE SOPFER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 

that a great mistake had here occurred in writing, 
since unskillful poets are often compelled for the 
sake of their rhyme to use words which destroy the 
sense. He said to me, '* No, I should let it stand 
just as it is." I consented to it then because it sud- 
denly occurred to me, that in the pine forests the 
industrious ants gather together straw, wood, earth, 
shells, and resin from the pines which they carry 
underneath into the hill and that this is called 
" Weihrauch." This pacified me to some extent 
because it accorded with the title. Still I could 
not reconcile the word "Zionitisch" with it, be- 
cause upon Mount Zion no such collection can be 
found as I have described. There God is praised 
in silence. There are there only two hymns. The 
one is the song of Moses, running, briefly, like this: 
'* Lord, thou and no other hast delivered us from 
all our enemies and dost protect us and lead us 
through outer danger." Exodus, 15th. There is 
no fighting or quarreling more, no time, no change 
of day and night. It therefore occurred to me that 
you must have a wonderful idea of Zion since you 
fix its nature but know nothing of and have not 
experienced real and actual death. The second song 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 347 



is short. It is the song of the Lamb which is 
strangled. It runs thus: "All is fulfilled. There 
is nothing more to do. Now praise we our God 
in silence." 

But you said in the meeting when I was there 
that every verse was suitable for Mount Zion. 
That is easily said if a man has a well smoothed 
tongue. You will find out otherwise however. 
Meanwhile I regretted my lost time over the book 
and that my hope which had something honorable 
for its object should have so entirely failed. I spoke 
with Brother Samuel once more about it in what 
way it was to be understood. He answered me 
that I should not blame them for being Catholic, 
which I from my heart wished to be true since in 
the Community of Christ there are no others. For 
instance we believe in the mediation of holy ones 
and truly of those who are afterward in life. This 
caused me no scruple because it is my daily exercise 
notwithstanding I am still not holy. What then 
will the holy do. But when he asked me whether 
I believed only in one Christ I would have been 
shocked into a cold fever if true quiet had not pre- 
vented. I then read the whole hymn over again once 



348 THE SOURER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 

more and saw the man who was intended and it gave 
me ereat sorrow. But I remembered how far the 
human race depart from God and that man is in- 
clined to idolatry and easily moved to make images 
and to honor himself while the tendency to depart 
from the true way (found only in the ground of the 
spirit and by the abandonment of all creature things) 
is born in him. He is therefore easily led to act 
v^^ith sects, parties, and like divisions, and one believes 
and receives from another that which is pleasant 
without real experience of what will be the outcome. 
It may be therefore that it ought not to be taken 
amiss in the writer of the hymn, since as the eyes 
are so do they see. Still I have no real peace about 
this affair. I determined then to write to you and 
to ask you whether you had not seen or read this 
piece or had not considered what a dreadful pro- 
duction it is; to say that without serious difficulty 
it can be still taken out and in its place something 
to the honor of God, or for the good of weak souls, 
can be put in where the two pages are cut out which 
I will do at my own expense; and to ask you whether 
on the other hand it was done according to your 
wish and inclination. If so, I would remind you 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL ^ARREL 349 

that the good Moses could not go into Canaan be- 
cause he honored not the Lord when he said "must 
we fetch you water." See what an afflicted burden- 
bearer and once true knight Moses was and where 
is such a Moses? Herod may well have made such 
an unusually good address to the people that it caused 
them to say, ** That is the voice of God and not of 
man." The angel struck not the unwitting people 
because they were inclined to idolatry but him who 
accepted the Godly honor. Already you suffer 
yourself to be called *' Father."''' Oh, would there 
were a single one who comprehended Christ and 
respected and carried out the commands of him who 
absolutely forbid that you should let any one call 
you master and should call any man ** Father" upon 
this earth ! The misery is already great enough, as 
you yourself said to me significantly. You are the 
greatest God in the community. When you sat still 
everything fell back. You had once for sometime 
given up the meeting and every thing fell away. 
Your dearest brethren hastened to the world. Even 
Brother N. had made a wagon in which to ride to 
the city. There were other instances which you 

^^His cloister name was ♦♦ Vater Friedsam." 



3 so THE SOfFER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 



told me. And did you not the other day in the 
meeting significantly and at great length speak of 
this idolatry and how they went whoring after you 
as is indeed the case. And now will they with full 
throats call and sing: 

" Sehet, sehet, sehet an ! 
Sehet, sehet an den mann ! 
Der von Gott erhohet ist 
Der ist unser Herr und Christ." 

If Brother Samuel had not said to me con- 
cerning it that the hymn had a double meaning and 
one might take it as he chose, I should have con- 
sidered the last as referring to Christ and looked 
upon the "God without rest" as a compulsion of 
the verse. Are there not already molten calves 
enough ? Is not the door to Babel great enough that 
they should build another little door through which 
they can call loudly, "See here is Christ" in order 
to entice souls to themselves? Do not misunderstand 
me. I value highly the favor of returning to you. 
But I fear God will play his own part in it and 
leave the beautiful vessel empty lest otherwise upright 
souls might suffer an injury which certainly would 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 351 

cause no single child of God pleasure. Much more 
were it to be wished from the innermost heart that 
all the might of the stars were entirely lost and that 
Christ were indeed the ruler in you and the whole 
community. This would give me great joy to look 
upon through my whole life long. There is nothing 
more to say except that, with the permission of 
Brother Michael,* I should like, if I might, to take 
out this one hymn and put another in its place be- 
cause it concerns the honor of God. It is easy to 
see that I have no earthly concern in it and that the 
influence of no man's interest has anything to do with 
it. There are still as many as a hundred hymns with 
which you can feed the senses that they die not. I 
am sure that a thousand pounds would not persuade 
me to print such a one for the reason that it leads 
the easy way to idolatry. If it were my paper it 
would have been already burned. But my suggestion 
was met by the brethren only with scornful and 
mocking words and at last they said, " Now we will 
pack up the paper." I thought "they have still 
better right to it than the Hussars." With such 
disposition of the matter for my own part I can 

*Michael Wohlfahrt, who in the cloister was Brother Agonius. 



352 THE SOWER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 

be at peace. God will find a way to protect His 
honor. As to the rest I love thee still. 

Christoph Saur. 

Thereupon I received the following letter in- 
stead of an answer. 

In some respects the subject is entirely too bad 
for me to have anything to do with thee about it 
since it has been written : " Answer not a fool ac- 
cording to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him." 

" Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he 
be wise in his own conceit." This is the reason 
that I have been moved and thou needst not think 
that thou hast made a point. But that I should be 
like unto thee from having to do with thee will not 
happen since we already before made the mistake of 
having too much to do with thee. Thou wast not 
fit for our community. Therein also was fulfilled 
what has been written : " As he that taketh away a 
garment in cold weather, and as vinegar upon nitre, 
so is he that singeth songs to an heavy heart." 

If thou hadst not always acted in this way it 
might perhaps have been thought that there was 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL ^UJRREL 353 



some reason for it, but since thy whole heart is 
always ready to blame what is above thy conceited 
Sophist — heaven, it is no wonder to me that thou 
comst now puffed up with such foolish and desperate 
conceits : through which thou layest thyself so bare 
that any one who has only ordinary eyes can see that 
thou art indeed a miserable Sophist. If thou hadst 
only learned natural morality thou wouldst not have 
been so puffed up. A wise man does not strive to 
master or to describe a cause of which he has neither 
comprehension nor experience but it is otherwise 
with a fool. Thou ought first to go to school and 
learn the lowly and despised way of the Cross of 
Jesus before thou imaginest thyself to be a master. 
Enough for thee. This may inform thee that hence- 
forth I will have nothing to do with thy two-sided 
double-hearted odious and half hypocritical pre- 
tensions of Godliness, since thy heart is not clean 
before God otherwise thou wouldst walk upright in 
the way and go not the crooked way thou dost. 

One almost springs aloft when he sees how 
shamefully the name of God is misused. 

The world sings its little song and dances 
straight and without hesitation to hell and covers it 



354 THE SOWER JND BEISSEL ^ARREL 

over with the name of God so that the deception 
and wickedness may not be seen. BeHeve me, thy 
way is sure to come before God, thy juggHng tricks 
and spiritual sleight of hand which thou, from the 
natural stars and not in the true fear of God, hast 
learned will come to judgment: and I say to thee 
as the word of truth that if thou dost not make 
atonement and change thy heart thou mayest expect 
a wrathful and terrible God, since the Lord is hos- 
tile to all that is double-faced and false. Indeed 
the paths which lead out from thee run through 
one another so wonderfully that the wonder is that 
God does not punish at once as he did the rebel- 
lious pack, Korah, Dathan and Abiram. 

Thou hast also in thy letter to me said that a 
fire burned in thy breast over this or that. It would 
be a good thing if that fire, if there is one, should 
consume thee until there should nothing remain but 
a soft and sweet spring of water in which thy heart 
might be mollified to true repentance. Then in- 
deed couldst thou for the first time learn to know 
rightly what is from God and what from nature, 
what from God and what from the stars in the 
heavens. 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL ^ARREL 355 



When I know of a man that he does not bend 
before God but still walks in his own highway, I 
accept absolutely no judgment as in Godly affairs, 
but say to him freely that he wash and clean him- 
self before I can have anything to do with him. 

As concerning those other things in which one 
man has to do with another it has also come to an 
end. Further and lastly it is my determination to 
remain as I have said above. I am so tired of the 
untruth of men that if I were not under the great- 
est necessity, if God did not plainly intend and it 
were not His will that I must be needed for the 
cause of conscience, I would rather be dismissed 
into the still everlasting. On that account I would 
have prayed that I might henceforth be spared from 
such defamation, but should it give pleasure to load 
me with more of it I shall bear myself as one who 
knows not that there are such things in the world. 
I will at the last be separated from all and will no 
further participate either pro or con. Still will I 
in some measure continue my writing and do it 
again if circumstances require it. 

What I have still further to say is this: that 
henceforth all right over my person shall be taken 



3S6 THE SOJVER AND BEISSEL ^UJRREL 

entirely out of thy hands, since thou for many years 
hast gone to work so wonderfully about it as if thou 
hadst bought it for a sum of money in order to do 
with it according to thy pleasure. Thou must not 
think that one is blind and foolish and dost not see 
what thou hast in mind. It does not even please 
me that I could write German to thee since thy 
envy and falsehood are so great that it is not easy 
to measure them. Therefore I consider thee en- 
tirely unfit to be a judge in Godly affairs, and for 
this reason I have little or nothing to answer to thy 
letter. Thou hast no experience in the way of God, 
for thou all the time walkest thine own way. 

Comment.'^ 

We have here now heard a voice, whether it 
came from Zion or Mount Sinai may those judge 
who know the difference. I am inclined to make a 
comment upon each word but every one may make 
his own as he chooses. I wish him only the soft 
and sweet spring of water which he needs instead of 
the fiery zeal of Sinai. Otherwise when he goes 
forth soon will he make fire fall from heaven, which 
we already hear crackle in his letter, and do signs 

* By Sower. 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL ^UJRREL 357 

and wonders. If I had thought he would take the 
trouble to describe my propensities and his I would 
have sent him a great register of the old Adam in 
me which I could describe much better than he. 
Since I for a long time have besought God to enable 
me thoroughly to discern their enormity and since I 
had found so much to do with myself I am ready 
to say the simple truth so that no man need be dis- 
turbed about me. And this is the reason for my 
long silence, and also for my thinking seldom of 
his person, not that it is too bad for me but because 
it can neither aid nor hinder me. If I were in such 
a position as he is, to give my nature possession I 
should need only the princes and powerful who still 
to a considerable degree have rule over the conceited 
Sophist-heaven, since they desire much to rule upon 
earth and to fasten their throne there. I could also 
have given him certain information that I have been 
beloved by many spiritual persons who truly were 
more beautiful and purer than those whom he holds 
above Christ. God had also so willed it that I for 
the same time cannot otherwise believe than that all 
is good to which the same spirit impelled me. I 
blame not the spirit which impelled him. He is 



358 THE SOWER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 

God's creature. I only say: he is not clean and is 
still far from the spirit of Christ. I rejoice that he 
praises God the Lord as all good spirits do, and in 
that respect I love him. I hate only the untruth 
which he brings to light and wishes to lay in the 
hearts of men. Therefore is he a blending of good 
and evil. And when he (as that one which through 
a maid had his pleasure in telling only the truth) 
pointed out the Apostles to men, and sought to 
further their happiness (Acts ch. xv. v. 17), I should 
leave him in the place for which he is good and as 
for myself rather hunger until death for the com- 
pleteness of my Jesus. In that I make myself entirely 
clear. In like manner I make a distinction between 
Conrad Beissel as he stands in his still well pro- 
portioned attributes derived from the old-birth or 
birth of the stars. 

T? 1/ c? O ? ^ D 

When one approaches him he shows first the 
complaisance of Jove; when one bends, rises, and 
heeds well he finds his sweetness and lovingness 
from Venus, his solar understanding and mercurial 
readiness. If one fails a little he shows the gravity 
and earnestness of Saturn. If one attacks only a 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL ^ARREL 359 

little his spiritual pride he shows the severity of Mars 
with thunder and lightning, popely ban, the sword 
of vengeance and fiery magic. What can induce a 
weak soul in sorrow and need to come and lay itself 
humbly at his feet when the unclean spirit, which 
takes pleasure in the fact, triumphs in this way. 
Therefore would I counsel no one upon whom he 
has laid his hands or who has been baptized by him 
or by another Father since all those who have given 
up the world and the gross fleshly life are prepared 
to be the habitations of a spirit, and through their 
own freed spirit and its suggestions and the help of 
other spirits they have the power to torture a de- 
serter and to put him in pain of body and soul and 
also those who have little strength and do not depend 
with their whole hearts upon the true living God, 
but rely particularly upon their own virtues. Conrad 
has subjected me to this proof. He has intruded 
upon my ethereal past, which has taught me how 
it goes with others, and how I have need of the 
support of my Saviour and to press into the centre 
of love or heart of Jesus where this aqua fortis 
cannot reach. Therefore as I have said I would 
counsel no one without higher strength to oppose 



36o THE SOWER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 

this Spirit. It is very powerful. And yet they are 
not bound by this strong magic, they have a free 
will. God has for many years shown me how 
many good and beautiful spirits there are which still 
are not clean. Already in the time of the Apostles 
there were many spirits which had gone beyond 
their limits in this our world. I therefore do not 
believe all that every one tells me, even when they 
speak through a spirit and speak only what the 
spirit says. The moon goes through many phases 
and this is also his nature. It has happened because 
of his beautiful and well proportioned nature that 
he would like to be something great. He looked 
upon the dumb creatures in their deformity and 
wanted to bring them to the right. For this pur- 
pose he took the means, method and way which 
pleased him. So that now all must dance according 
to his will and do what through the power of his 
magic he compels. But I also want to say that I 
by no means overlook what he has in him which is 
good, and I freely recognize that he has much that 
a true Christian cannot be without, and this many 
innocent people see and they are drawn to him by 
it. But for myself I can never be attached to him 



THE SOJVER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 361 

for the reason that I know that his teaching hith- 
erto has been a compound of Moses, Christ, Gich- 
tel and Conrad Beissel. And no one of them 
complete. The spirit of Moses stood up boldly 
and prayed for the people who had disobeyed him 
and done wrong. Should his people oppose him 
how soon would Mercury spread his wings. Christ 
was of an entirely different disposition. He knew 
his betrayer long before, and when the latter came 
to take his life he was such a gentle lamb that he 
said, "Friend! wherefore art thou come?" He 
received his kiss. He cured the ear of Malchus. 
Our dear Conrad is very far from anything of that 
kind. In many points he is very close to Gichtel 
and still closer to the little beast, described in Rev- 
elations I 3 ch. 1 1 V. which represents his peculiar- 
ity in spiritual things. His figure is such that if 
one beseeches him he has the horns of a lamb, but 
if one touches his temper only a little he speaks 
like a dragon and is indeed not to be regarded 
as the first great beast whose number is 666. He 
is not indeed so beast-like but is also not clean 
Godly, but is humanly peculiar and no other than 
CVnraDVs BelseLVs. DCLVVVI. 666. 



362 THE SOWER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 

If he had not for the future entirely taken out 
of my hands all right to his very holy person I 
could and would have opened up to him the inner 
ground of his heart a little between me and him 
alone but I must now be entirely silent for I am 
bound hand and foot. It seems to me that during 
the two weeks which he took to write to me he 
did not once remember him who suffered an 
entirely different opposition from sinners, who 
although he was in the Godly image held it not 
for a wrong to be like God but lowered himself 
and became as a man. But this one must be re- 
garded as a God and therefore the little calf should 
and must remain upon its place. When my Saviour 
had done a notable deed he desired that it should 
be unknown. See to it that no man learn of it. 
But to this God, we must sing his folly. If I had 
had ten hymns in the book and had been requested 
I would have taken them out, but Conrad is not 
accustomed to having his will broken. I could 
have overlooked it in silence out of natural mod- 
esty and as a printer but it concerned the love of 
God that I should not be silent. The spiritual 
harlotry and idolatry would have been increased 



THE SOWER AND BEISSEL QUARREL 2>(>3 

and confirmed by my support. I would rather die 
of hunger than earn my bread in such a way. It 
would go worse with me than with the primate in 
Poland who proclaimed a king upon the throne 
and could not keep him there. I have, without 
baptizing myself and letting myself be baptized 
four times (like him) placed myself under the stan- 
dard of my Saviour and loved him and still have 
not had the freedom to ask of him that he make 
an officer of me, but I gave myself to him as he 
best knows as poor clay to be formed in his hand 
as by a potter, or to be thrown into a corner as clay 
which is worthless. He has nevertheless appointed 
me as the least beneath his standard as a sentry to 
watch my post, a watchword has been given me 
which reads "Love and humility." When I then 
upon the dark nights call out "who goes there" 
and this parole is not answered me I know that it 
is no good friend and no man of ours. I must then 
fire my piece so that each upon his post may be 
warned. But since the Commander is not far away 
he will himself have a care. To him only the 
honor. For me willingly the shame. 



THE WAR OF THE 
REBELLION 

[Address delivered on Memorial Day, May 30, 1898, before Colonel 
Frederick Taylor Post, No. 19, G. A. R.] 

THE war of the rebellion was the outcome 
of conditions which had existed for so long 
a time, the events connected with it were so 
varied and complicated, its requirements of sacrifice 
both of life and substance were so tremendous, and 
its consequences were so limitless, that upon an 
occasion of this character no more can be expected 
than the expression of a few desultory thoughts 
upon a subject of such vast proportions. Should we 
be able to add anything in the way of information 
or suggestion to its literature, no matter how unim- 
portant the contribution, we may well be content. 

No more definite and correct forecast of a 
future event is chronicled in the history of any na- 
tion than a prophecy concerning the coming of Mr. 
Lincoln, to which I am about to call your attention. 



JVAR OF THE REBELLION 365 

Thomas Buchanan Read — a poet with a rare gift of 
song, whom the EngHsh critics compared to Gray, 
and whose "Wagoner of the Alleghanies" should 
be read in every American household — born along 
the Brandywine, in the county of Chester, in this 
state, wrote a "New Pastoral," which was published 
in Philadelphia in 1855, but whose scene was laid 
in the early part of the century. In describing the 
wanderings of a Quaker family from Pennsylvania 
to the prairies of Illinois, he says: 

"and northern lakes 
Shall bear their produce, and return them wealth; 
And Mississippi, father of the floods. 
Perform their errands to the Mexic Gulf, 
And send them back the tropic bales and fruits. 
Then shall the generations musing here, 
Dream of the troublous days before their time; 
And antiquaries point the very spot 
Where rose the first rude cabin, and the space 
Where stood the forest-chapel with its graves. 
And where the earliest marriage rites were said. 
Here, in the middle of the nation's arms, 
Perchance the mightiest inland mart shall spring. 
Here the great statesman from the ranks of toil 
May rise, with judgment clear, as strong as wise; 
And, with a well-directed patriot-blow, 
Rcclinch the rivets in our union-bands. 
Which tinkering knaves have striven to set ajar!" 



366 WAR OF THE REBELLION 

The underlying cause of the war was the de- 
termination of those whose commercial and political 
importance was based upon the ownership of labor 
to maintain and extend the institution of human 
slavery. I am well aware that under the softening 
influence of time and the restoration of kindly 
feeling there is a growing disposition to regard the 
struggle as involving solely the interpretation of the 
constitution and the settlement of the question of 
the sovereignty of the states. But experience teaches 
that while in every lawsuit the contestants are ap- 
parently striving for the determination of legal 
principles, the inspiring motives lie deeper and seek 
results more concrete and substantial. If our pur- 
pose be really to ascertain the truth we will turn 
away from the mere comment of a later day and 
look at the records of the time, and the conduct of 
the parties while in action, and see what this exam- 
ination discloses. In 1862, the second year of the 
war, there was published at Atlanta, Georgia, "A 
System of Modern Geography," "For the use of 
Schools and Academies in the Confederate States of 
America." And the children were taught about the 
United States that "this number was reduced to 



WAR OF THE REBELLION 367 

twenty States in 1861 by the secession of fourteen 
of the Southern States which formed a new govern- 
ment under the title of the Confederate States of 
America, upon a permanent basis the corner-stone of 
which is African Slavery;" and that "under the in- 
fluence of slavery, which is the corner-stone of her 
governmental fabric, the Confederate States has just 
commenced a career of greatness." The Confed- 
erate States met in congress at Montgomery, Ala., 
and adopted a constitution on the i ith of March, 
1 86 1, which was at that time there printed. If the 
question uppermost in their minds had been the 
preservation of state sovereignty and the right of 
secession, when occasion demanded its exercise, a 
provision to this effect would have certainly appeared 
in definite and comprehensive phrase. This state 
paper contains no language which will bear such in- 
terpretation. Six of its one hundred and four 
clauses relate to slavery and the extension of that 
institution into new territory, and clause 4 of section 
9 provides that " No bill of attainder, ex-post facto 
law, or law denying or impairing the right of prop- 
erty in negro slaves, shall be passed." In other words, 
it was made a part of the fundamental law that even 



368 JVAR OF THE REBELLION 

if the people of the confederacy should wish in the 
future to modify the institution they should be with- 
out power to accomplish such a purpose. 

Desperate as were the struggles of the war, and 
grim as were its features, it had its phases of humor. 
" Personne," who was the army correspondent of 
the Charleston Courier, published at Columbia, S. C, 
in 1864, a book of war anecdotes, called "Margin- 
alia," which well illustrate the spirit of the time 
upon the side to which he belonged. In it he tells 
in all soberness this marvelous story : " Sergeant 
Gray, of Captain Wood's company of Scott's Thirty- 
seventh Virginia regiment, captured in one of 
Jackson's recent battles a Yankee captain, lieutenant 
and eleven privates. He overhauled them and com- 
manded a halt, when the captain ordered his men to 
fire. They did so without inflicting serious injury 
upon Gray, who rushed upon the captain, took his 
sword from him, and told him if he did not com- 
mand his men to surrender he would kill him in- 
stantly. The gallant captain succumbed, when each 
private marched singly up to Gray and laid his arms 
at the conqueror's feet. After he had secured all 
he shouldered the eleven muskets and marched the 



IVAR OF THE REBELLION 369 

thirteen Yanks into camp. This is what one resolute 
man did." Those of you who remember that you had 
enough to do to carry with ease one musket, and that 
you regarded the second, which some comrade may 
have handed you temporarily, as a grievous burden, 
can well sympathize with the difficulties of this poor 
sergeant, wounded, though not seriously, in his ef- 
forts, with eleven muskets upon his sturdy shoulder, 
to corral thirteen Yankees and drive them into camp. 
The war presents to us many and remarkable 
incongruities. There was one congressman, who, 
when his state had attempted to secede, refused to 
be controlled by the action of his people ; who alone 
after all of his colleagues and the other members 
from the seceded states had departed, remained in 
the performance of his duties until the end of his 
term, participating in every military measure of the 
early part of the struggle. Does his name fill a 
niche in our history, and are our children taught to 
revere this solitary and remarkable instance of stead- 
fastness, character and love of country ? He died an 
outcast, driven from the home to which he was 
never permitted to return, and his memory has 
perished from the recollections of men. At this re- 



370 JVAR OF THE REBELLION 

mote time, and in this distant city, let me offer my 
tribute to the manhood of John Edward Bouligny, 
of the state of Louisiana. 

There was one locality in the very heart of the 
south, covering a large part of a state, whose people 
continued true to the cause of the nation throughout 
the whole of the long and dreary years of the war. 
Though they were shot in their homes, hanged from 
trees and bridges, hunted with bloodhounds, with 
armies of their foes swaying to and fro across their 
land, their courage never faltered and their strength 
never failed. What the province of La Vendee was 
to the throne during the French revolution these 
people with loyalty unconquerable were to the union 
during our rebellion. And finally the cause for 
which they had suffered so much was triumphant. 
Its success brought to them neither wealth nor power, 
nor even conspicuous recognition and enduring rep- 
utation. In the working out of broad lines of policy, 
amid the exigencies of reconstruction, they were 
abandoned to the control and tender mercies of their 
old antagonists; and the heroism of East Tennessee, 
without example in our annals, is but a memory 
fading rapidly into the distance. 



JTJR OF THE REBELLION 371 

It was the only war recorded in history which 
to the victors was all loss and to the vanquished was 
all gain. The mighty north, after winning the 
struggle by the outlay of billions of dollars and the 
sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives, inflicted 
no punishment, imposed no additional burden, and 
added not one foot to its territory, not one cent to 
its resources, and nothing to its political advantages. 
The beaten south, relieved of the indebtedness it had 
incurred, freed despite its efforts from an incubus 
which for generations had been sapping its resources 
and undermining its prosperity, without the payment 
of indemnity or the curtailment of privilege, with 
large increase of political power due to the enfran- 
chisement of its citizens, started upon a career of 
renewed promise and activity. 

It has been often observed that Pennsylvania, 
founded and long controlled by a sect devoted to the 
principles of peace, has alone of the states vied with 
Virginia in the production of soldiers of eminence 
and skill. The war made especially conspicuous, in 
a military sense, the state wherein, a century before, 
independence had been declared and the constitution 
had been framed. At half after four o'clock on the 



372 WAR OF THE REBELLION 

morning of the twelfth of April, 1861, the rebels 
opened fire upon Fort Sumter. Before the day had 
closed came the answer of the north, in resonant 
tones, from Pennsylvania. In the early morning an 
act calling the people to arms was introduced into 
the House of Representatives of this state and passed, 
sent to the Senate and referred to the finance com- 
mittee, reported back under a suspension of the 
rules, made the special order for an evening session 
and was passed, and signed by the governor. It 
provided : 

"Section 4. That for the purpose of organ- 
izing, equipping and arming the militia of this state, 
the sum of five hundred thousand dollars, or so much 
thereof as may be necessary to carry out the pro- 
visions of this act, be and the same is hereby appro- 
priated, to be paid by the state treasurer out of any 
money not otherwise appropriated. 

"Section 5. . . . And should the president of 
the United States at any time make a requisition for 
part of the militia of this state for public service, 
the adjutant-general shall take the most prompt 
measures for supplying the number of men required 
and having them marched to the place of rendez- 



m\ 



IVAR OF THE REBELLION 373 

vous, and shall call them by divisions, brigades, reg- 
iments, or single companies, as directed by the 
Commander-in-chief." 

This first step of the war on the part of the 
north, quick as a flash, three days earlier than the 
call of the president for troops, followed by New 
York on the 15th, and the other states later, fixing 
the attitude of the loyal people toward the rebellion, 
and which, from beginning to end, was urged and 
directed by a still living member of this post,* is one 
of those momentous and overpowering events that 
determine the fate of nations and affect the future 
of all the inhabitants of the earth. What crossing 
the Rubicon meant to Caesar, what the dinner of the 
Beggars of the Sea was to the Dutch in their eighty 
years' war with Spain, what Lexington was to our 
Revolution, this legislative call upon the people of 
the commonwealth to arms, and tender to the gov- 
ernment of military support, was to the war of the 
rebellion. 

In response and obedience, the first troops, con- 
sisting of five companies from the towns of Reading, 
Pottsville, Allentown and Lewistown, reached Wash- 

* Alexander K. McClure. 



374 JVAR OF THE REBELLION 

ington on the i8th of April. On the 19th, the 
Seventh Pennsylvania and the Sixth Massachusetts 
regiments were attacked in Baltimore, and the first 
blood was poured out upon the streets of that city 
where the Star Spangled Banner had been written. 
Another fateful crisis soon occurred. After the 
army had been defeated at Bull Run and had fled to 
Washington, the president and his cabinet sat within 
the capital awaiting with each moment the approach 
of the victorious rebels. The direful effect which 
the threatened capture would have had in leading to 
complications abroad and depression at home is 
manifest. The battle was fought upon the 21st of 
July. Before the 25th seventeen thousand Pennsyl- 
vanians, armed, equipped and disciplined, were there 
to defend the intrenchments. Mr. Lincoln came 
to the depot to express his personal gratitude for 
the safety they ensured — and the danger passed. 

Pennsylvania furnished two of the five com- 
manders of that magnificent force, the army of the 
Potomac, upon which, after awarding due credit to 
other organizations, we must concede the burden of 
overthrowing the rebellion was cast — McClellan, 
who gave it form, and Meade, under whom it won 



fTAR OF THE REBELLION 375 

its greatest victory and its final success. Upon her 
soil were born fourteen army and corps commanders: 
Meade, McClellan, Hancock, Reynolds, Humph- 
reys, Birney, Gibbon, Park, Naglee, Smith, Cad- 
walader, Crawford, Heintzelman and Franklin; and 
forty-eight general officers, including Hartranft, the 
hero of Fort Steadman, and Geary, who fought 
above the clouds at Lookout Mountain. Simon 
Cameron was secretary of war at the beginning of 
the struggle and Edwin M. Stanton at the close. 
No other state had an entire division in the army, 
and all of them were below her in the percentage of 
those killed in battle. A single Pennsylvania family 
sent into the war two generals, an adjutant-general, 
four colonels, a lieutenant-colonel, two surgeons, two 
assistant surgeons, an adjutant, nine captains, seven 
lieutenants and one hundred and sixteen sergeants, 
corporals and privates, including the most youthful 
of American generals, — in all one hundred and 
forty-five men, and, so far as has been ascertained, 
an unequalled contribution to the great struggle. 

The decisive battle of the war, among the most 
fiercely contested combats of all time, requiring the 
utmost exertion combined with the largest capacity 



376 fVAR OF THE REBELLION 

and the highest technical skill, whose result was of 
more moment to the future generations of mankind 
than Cannas, Agincourt or Waterloo, was fought at 
a village in Pennsylvania by one of her own sons, 
famous forever after among the soldiers of America 
and the world. The opening gun of the contest 
was fired by Hofmann's Fifty-sixth Pennsylvania 
regiment, and the battle begun by Reynolds was 
continued by Hancock the superb and by Humph- 
reys. Gregg upon the right flank won a great and 
distinctive cavalry battle which saved the line from 
assault in the rear. And when Pickett led his divi- 
sion from the Emmettsburg road across the low 
land, in that charge destined to be futile but to be 
immortal, because never again did the waves of re- 
bellion surge so far, by some strange chance he was 
turned away from the clump of trees and he hurled 
his command to destruction against the Philadelphia 
Brigade at the bloody angle of the stone wall. It 
so happened in the providence of God that this 
mighty convulsion of battle, these throes of tremen- 
dous forces, in mass and in detail and in all their 
incidents but tested the courage and character and 
added to the glory of our native state. 



WAR OF THE REBELLION 377 

The purpose of those who appealed to arms 
was to disrupt the ties which held the states to- 
gether in union. It was a vain hope. The blows that 
were intended to dissever and break into fragments 
but welded the mass into closer association. Laws 
were passed under the pressure of military necessity 
which had never before been even suggested and 
became precedents for the future. Powers were 
exercised which had never before existed and which 
never again will be called in question. When was 
it that this country became a nation? It was not, 
as has sometimes been alleged, at the time of the 
adoption of the constitution. After the execution 
of the agreement came the action under it and the 
interpretation of its terms. Never in the history of 
human affairs has the mere underwriting of a paper 
made a government. Governments are the results 
of germination and growth, of development from 
conditions, of the working out of consequence from 
existing cause. It was not in the debates upon the 
floor of the Senate, when the logic of Webster con- 
fronted the fallacy of Hayne, important as were 
the results of that great effort in teaching the Amer- 
ican people the value of the union into which they 



378 fFJR OF THE REBELLION 

had entered. Nor was it in the decisions of that 
august tribunal, the supreme court of the United 
States, amid the conflicting opinions of John Mar- 
shall and Roger B. Taney. The philosophical 
historian of the future, carefully analyzing our in- 
stitutions and reading events from the safe vantage 
point of distance, secure in the certainty of results 
attained, w^ill tell the generations yet to be that the 
American people never became a nation until that 
skilled and masterful soldier, George G. Meade, 
wrote with his sword the final interpretation of the 
constitution of his country upon the crests of Round 
Top, Kulp's Hill and Cemetery Ridge. 

Comrades, my story is told and I have done. 
Thirty-five years have rolled away upon their course 
since Lee, broken and dismayed, retreated from the 
battlefield of Gettysburg, and the American people 
are again confronted with the perils and trials of 
war. The fife and the drum once more are heard 
upon our streets, and the waves of the summer seas 
arc disturbed with the roar of cannon. Great as 
are the calamities of war, they are not entirely 
unrelieved, and without compensation. To forget 
for a time the pursuit of money and the spur of 



IVJR OF THE REBELLION 379 

ambition, to abandon for a space, however brief, 
the trivialties and amusements of life, while we 
offer sacrifice to the welfare of the country and the 
maintenance of a just cause, is to strengthen the 
national purpose and to chasten the national char- 
acter. Regret it as we may, the pathway of human 
progress is stained at every step with the blood of 
human victims. England exists to-day in the plen- 
itude of her power, and Europe is free from the 
blight of the dark ages, because the Dutch under 
William of Orange dared to meet the Spaniard 
when he ruled the land and the sea. If we are 
able to remove the clutch of the same weakened 
but still mailed hand from an abused and oppressed 
people, lowly though they be, near our own shores, 
we need not stop to count the lives nor to reckon 
the cost. And it is a happy and propitious omen 
that at the very dawn of the contest the breezes 
from the south bear to our ears the names of an- 
other Lee of Virginia, and Brooke of Pennsylvania, 
who, not forgetting but overlooking and disregard- 
ing the dissensions of the past, meet together upon 
the front line to strike at the same foe in behalf of 
a common cause and a thoroughly united country. 



38o IVAR OF THE REBELLION 

Much benefit has the unwitting Spaniard conferred 
upon us, since he has removed the last trace of 
those resentments which the victories and defeats 
of the civil war left lingering in the hearts of our 
people. 



GETTYSBURG 

[Introducing Mr. Roosevelt, May 30, 1904.] 

THE battle of Gettysburg, momentous in its 
exhibition of military force and skill, tre- 
mendous in its destruction of human life, 
had consequences which in their effect upon the 
race are limitless. As the seeds of the cockle are 
sown with the wheat, so in the constitution adopted 
by the fathers in 1787 lay the germs of an inevi- 
table struggle. Two antagonistic forces grew in 
vigor and strength, side by side in one household, 
and like Ormuzd and Ahriman they must strive for 
the mastery. Upon this field the struggle came to 
a determination and the issue between them was 
here decided with cannon and musket. The rebel- 
lion was undertaken by the followers of the doc- 
trines of Calhoun and Davis with the purpose to 
rend the nation asunder and break it into fragments. 
Alas for the futility of the expectations of men ! 
The Lord who holds the peoples in the hollow o± 
his hand, and who since the dawn of history has 
taken them up by turns in the search for one fit for 



382 GETTTSBURG 

broad dominion, did not forsake us. The extraor- 
dinary powers exercised for the maintenance of the 
national life in that dire time of war became fixed 
as the principles of the national government. The 
flame of strife but tested the virtue of the metal. 
The blows intended to dissever, only welded the 
sovereignties together more firmly, for future wider 
effort. The nation as it exists to-day arose when 
Pickett failed to drive the Philadelphia Brigade from 
the stone wall on Cemetery Hill. A seer sitting on 
that dread day upon the crests of Big Round Top 
could have figured in the clouds of smoke rolling 
over the Devil's Den and the Bloody Angle the 
scenes soon to occur in Manila Bay, at Santiago and 
San Juan Hill, the beaming of a new light at 
Hawaii and in the far Philippines, the junction of 
the two mighty oceans and the near disappearance 
of English control of the commerce of the world. 
The presidential office is so great a station 
among men that those who fill it are not to be re- 
garded as personalities. Their individuality is lost 
in its immensity. They become the manifestations 
of certain impulses and stages of development of 
the national life. Jackson represented its rough. 



GETTYSBURG 383 

uncouth and undisciplined strength. Lincoln looms 
up above all other Americans bearing the burden of 
woe and suffering which fate laid upon his broad 
shoulders in its time of stress and trial. Blessed be 
his memory forevermore ! No people can look for- 
ward to the fulfillment of such a destiny as events 
seem to outline for us save one alert and eager with 
the enthusiasm and vigor of youth. No other pres- 
ident has so stood for that which after all typifies 
our life — the sweep of the winds over broad prai- 
ries, the snow-capped mountains and the rushing 
rivers, the sequoia trees, the exuberance of youth 
conscious of red blood, energy and power painting 
our bow of promise — as does Theodore Roosevelt. 
He has hunted in our woods, he has enriched our 
literature, he has ridden in the face of the enemy, he 
has maintained our ideals. Upon this day, devoted 
to the memories of the heroic dead, — in Pennsyl- 
vania a sad Decoration Day, — the achievements of 
the prolific past and the promise of the teeming 
future confront each other. To-day for the first 
time Theodore Roosevelt treads the field made im- 
mortal by the sword of George Gordon Meade and 
hallowed by the prose dirge of Abraham Lincoln. 



26th PENNSYLVANIA 
EMERGENCY INFANTRY 

[Address delivered September i, 1892, at the dedication of the 
monument on the battlefield of Gettysburg.] 

ON the morning of the 26th of June, 1863, 
General Jubal A. Early, with his division of 
the rebel army, numbering 6,368 men, sup- 
ported by White's battalion of cavalry and Jones's 
battalion of artillery, consisting of four batteries 
with an aggregate of thirteen guns,* started from 
Greenwood, upon the Chambersburg pike, on the 
way to Gettysburg.f It was the advance of that 
great host which two days later began to concen- 
trate upon this historic town. The purpose of 
the movement plainly appears. Its object was to 
hold in check the army of the Potomac, then mov- 
ing northward on the east side of the mountains, 

*Jones's Report, War of Rebellion, No. 44, p. 493. 
•|- Early's Report, War of Rebellion, No. 44, p. 464. 



EMERGENCr INFANTRT 385 

while Lee should continue his operations in the 
Cumberland valley and be enabled to reach Harris- 
burg. Lee says in his official report : " In order, 
however, to retain it (the army of the Potomac) on 
the east side of the mountains, after it should enter 
Maryland, and thus leave open our communications 
with the Potomac through Hagerstown and Will- 
iamsport. General Ewell had been instructed to 
send a division eastward from Chambersburg to 
cross the South mountain. Early's division was de- 
tached for this purpose."* 

On the same morning a Pennsylvania infantry 
regiment, numbering in all 743 men, arrived in 
Gettysburg and, under the order of Major Granville 
O. Haller, U. S. A., the representative of Major 
General D. N. Couch at this place, marched out the 
Chambersburg pike to confront the approaching 
host. The men upon whom this duty was imposed, 
coming from the field, the college, and the home, 
had been in the service just four days; not long 
enough to have acquired a knowledge of the drill, 
hardly long enough to have learned the names of 
their officers and comrades. It has always seemed to 

* Lee's Report, War of Rebellion, No. 44, p. 307. 



386 TWENTY-SIXTH PENNSYLVANIA 

me that the situation had in it much of the heroic. 
Untrained, untried, and unused to war, they were 
sent to meet an overwhelming and disciplined force, 
not in some Grecian pass or mountain defile of the 
Swiss or Tyrol Alps, but in the open field with the 
certainty that they could make no effectual resist- 
ance. These young men, in their unsoiled uniforms, 
and flushed with enthusiasm, were to be thrown as 
a preliminary sacrifice to the army of Northern Vir- 
ginia for the accomplishment of a military end. 
The order setting before them this hopeless task has 
been criticised, but it was correct. In an artistic 
sense it was needful that Pennsylvania, in the pre- 
liminary movements leading up to the decisive 
battle of the war fought upon her soil, should take 
the first step. In a moral sense it was required of 
her to resent the invasion by a blow even though it 
should be impotent in effect. From a militarv 
point of view I hope to be able to show that the 
movement of the regiment produced results of im- 
portance in the impending struggle. It marched 
cheerfully and even gaily out the Chambersburg 
pike as far as Marsh creek, and then the inevitable 
happened. The rebel General Ewell, in his official 



EMERGENCT INFANTRT 387 

report says, sententiously : " In front of Gettysburg 
White charged and routed the Twenty-sixth regi- 
ment Pennsylvania militia, of whom 1 70 were taken 
and paroled. '"'' 

Who were the men whose fate it was to be 
thus suddenly caught up in the whirlwind of that 
momentous crisis? On the 15th of June President 
Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for fifty thou- 
sand men from Pennsylvania, to be organized under 
the regulations of the volunteer service, to repel a 
threatened invasion of the state. It was supple- 
mented upon the same day by a proclamation from 
Governor Curtin : " An army of rebels is approach- 
ing our border. ... I now appeal to all the citi- 
zens of Pennsylvania, who love liberty and are 
mindful of the history and traditions of their revo- 
lutionary fathers, and who feel that it is a sacred 
duty to guard and maintain the free institutions of 
our country, who hate treason and its abettors, and 
who are willing to defend their homes and their 
firesides, and do invoke them to rise in their 
might and rush to the rescue in this hour of im- 
minent peril. The issue is one of preservation or 

*Eweirs Report, War of Rebellion, No. 44, p. 443. 



388 TWENTY-SIXTH PENNSYLVANIA 

destruction."* In response to these urgent appeals 
the men of Pennsylvania began to collect at Harris- 
burg in large numbers, expecting to enter the service 
of the commonwealth and to remain until the danger 
should disappear. On reaching that place, how- 
ever, they learned that they would only be accepted 
for a term of six months, and that they must be 
sworn into the service of the United States. Many 
of them, perhaps the larger number, returned to 
their homes. Simon Cameron appears to have been 
the first to suggest to the government at Washing- 
ton the propriety of accepting troops for the " emer- 
gency. "f The suggestion met with little favor, 
but when the clouds upon the border had rolled 
nearer and become more ominous, it was adopted, 
and Secretary Stanton telegraphed to General Couch, 
"Muster them in whichever way you can. "J Eight 
regiments of infantry, two batteries, six companies 
of cavalry, and four independent companies of in- 
fantry entered the service for the "existing emer- 

* Lincoln's and Curtin's Proclamations, War of Rebellion, No. 45, 
pp. 136, 145. 

f Cameron to Lincoln, War of Rebellion, No. 45, p. 141. 
J Stanton to Couch, War of Rebellion, No. 45, p. 185. 



EMERGENCY INFANTRY 389 

gency."* It is believed to be the only body of troops 
during the entire war, unless we may except the 
veteran corps, who committed themselves to the 
control of the government for a period of uncer- 
tain duration. In fact, the time they were actually 
retained proved to be brief, but with Lee about to 
invade the state it threatened to extend into the 
indefinite future and they assumed the risk. Mr. 
Stanton wrote, June 15th, "No one can tell how 
long the present emergency for troops in Pennsyl- 
vania may continue. The present movement is but 
the execution of Jeff Davis's original plan to make 
Pennsylvania and the loyal states the theatre of 
war. Human foresight cannot say how long it 
may take to drive out the rebels. "f Mr. Stanton 
gave his consent to the suggestion of Cameron, 
Curtin and Couch at twenty minutes of two 
o'clock on the 17th of June, and that same 
afternoon fifty-seven students of Pennsylvania Col- 
lege, four students of the Lutheran Seminary, and 
twenty-two other men from the town of Gettys- 
burg, the first of the emergency troops, took the 

* War of Rebellion, No. 44, p. 215. 

•j- Stanton to Cameron, War of Rebellion, No. 45, p. 141. 



390 TWENTY-SIXTH PENNSYLVANIA 

oath and entered the service. These eighty-three 
men became Company A of the Twenty-sixth 
Pennsylvania emergency infantry.* Although these 
troops, for the sake of convenience, have been 
classed with the militia, the distinction between 
them drawn by General Couch when he reported 
"troops are mustered into United States service 
... to serve during the existing emergency. The 
governor mustered in the militia in the state service 
for three months," t and based upon the fact that 
they were in the service of the general government 
and were paid, equipped and clothed by it, ought 
to be strenuously maintained. 

Mustered and complete in organization on the 
22d of June, the regiment under command of Col- 
onel W. W. Jennings started for Gettysburg on the 
24th, but meeting with a railroad accident, it was 
detained at Swift run, six miles away from its point 
of destination. About this time General Couch 
reported with some satisfaction to Mr. Stanton that 
he had " one Pennsylvania regiment near Gettysburg 

* Stanton to Couch, War of Rebellion, No. 45, p. 185. Dr. E. W. 
Meissenhelder, in Pennsylvania College Book, p. 421. 

\ Couch to Stanton, War of Rebellion, No. 45, p. 408. 



EMERGENCr INFANTRT 391 



to harass the enemy and if possible to hold the 
mountains there."* The following evening a detail 
of one hundred men marched into the town, where 
they were joined by the rest of the regiment on the 
morning of the 26th. Driven by Early from the 
Chambersburg pike at Marsh creek, where a shot 
or two was fired and where he lost his pickets, 
Colonel Jennings, finding that he was becoming 
enmeshed with the forces of the enemy, already so 
strong that he was powerless to contend against 
them, and likely to be continually increased, de- 
termined to extricate himself if possible and make 
his way back to Harrisburg. Overtaken by White's 
cavalry on the Hunterstown road at the farm house 
of Henry Whitmer and attacked, the regiment was 
drawn up in line on the right hand side of the road 
and opened fire. An engagement ensued lasting for 
from twenty minutes to half an hour. At this 
obscure, unknown, and unvisited spot, four miles 
from the town, began the rattle of musketry which 
a few days later was to be heard in louder and 
fiercer tones from Kulp's Hill to Round Top, and 
which while time lasts the generations of men can 

* Couch to Stanton, War of Rebellion, No. 45, p. 264. 



392 TWENTY-SIXTH PENNSYLVANIA 

never forget. In the language of Doubleday, here 
was the first serious resistance Lee's army encoun- 
tered before the coming of the army of the Poto- 
mac. They were the opening shots of the battle 
of Gettysburg.* The attack was repulsed, but 
Company B, the rear company, commanded by 
Captain Carnaghan, were almost all taken prisoners. 
Private Thomas H. Dailey, Company C, was hit in 
the face by a ball and several rebels were shot from 
their horses before they retired.f Private A. Stan- 
ley Ulrich, Company E, and James K. Moore, 
Company C, becoming separated from the regiment 
in this engagement and refusing to surrender, finally 
found their way to Gettysburg on the 30th of June 
and there associating themselves with Company K 
of the One Hundred and Twenty-first P. V., fought 
in the army of the Potomac through the whole of 

* About the only opposition he encountered came from a militia regi- 
ment at Gettysburg, but this was soon driven away. Doubleday's Chancel- 
lorsville and Gettysburg, p. 112. 

•j- Mss. statements of Joseph L. Lenberger, hospital steward; William G. 
George and Joseph Donnel, of Co. H. ; George B. Lcssig, of Co. F; 
Lieutenant Edward P. McCormick, of Co. C; William Few, of Co. E. 
Contemporary ms. of Captain F. Kleinfelter, Co. A, Contemporary let- 
ters of Samuel W. Pcnnypackcr, Co. F. Bates, Vol. V, p. 1225. State- 
ments made in 1881 by Rufus E. Culp, J. W. Diehl, A. F. Gitt, and 
Henry Whitmer. 



EMERGENCr INFANTRT 393 

the battle, and afterwards aided in burying the 
dead.* Corporal Charles Macdonald and Privates 
George Steele and A. W. Shick, from Company F, 
had been ordered, after the performance of a special 
duty, to meet the regiment at Gettysburg. At the 
turnpike gate on the York pike they were charged 
upon by the rebel cavalry and were only captured 
after they had discharged their muskets and Shick 
had endeavored to bayonet a horseman, one of two 
who fired four shots at him.f Here was the first 
encounter within the limits of the town. J. How- 
ward Jacobs, of Company F, was left in Gettysburg 
with a squad of men in charge of the wagons. 
They took a rebel prisoner and afterward about 
fifty in number participated in the engagement at 
Wrightsville in which nine men were wounded, 
and aided in the burning of the bridge over the 
Susquehanna. J 

Upon the repulse of White's cavalry on the 
Hunterstown road the regiment resumed its march, 

* Ms. statement of A. Stanley Ulrich. 

"(• Ms. statement of Corporal Charles Macdonald, Co. F. 

J Ms. statement of J. F. Jacobs, of Co. F. Report of Colonel J. 
G. Frick, War of Rebellion, No. 44, p. 279. Report of Major G. O. 
Haller, War of Rebellion, No. 44, page 996. 



394 TWENTY-SIXTH PENNSYLVANIA 



and after having been drawn up in line of battle 
again at Dillsburg to resist a threatened attack, and 
after meeting at different other points small bodies 
of the enemy, it arrived opposite Harrisburg at Fort 
Washington at tv^^o o'clock on the afternoon of 
Sunday. It had lost one hundred and seventy-six 
men captured and all of its equipage and supplies. 
It had spent two days and a half in almost continuous 
marching and skirmishing, substantially without rest 
or shelter. From the time the men left Gettysburg 
early on Friday morning until dusk on Saturday even- 
ing they had been without food. For two days longer 
they were without tents, and through the nights 
lay upon the bank in the fort exposed to the rain. 
About the hour of their arrival at Harrisburg, 
General Couch telegraphed to the president that 
the enemy had opened fire with his artillery within 
four miles of the defensive works, and it appears 
from the report of the rebel General Rodes that he 
made a thorough reconnoisance of the fortifications 
on the 29th, and had ordered an assault for the fol- 
lowing day.'^ The army of the Potomac interfered 

* Couch to Stanton, War of Rebellion, No. 45, p. 390. Rodes' re- 
port. War of Rebellion, No. 44, p. 552. 



EMERGENCY INFANTRY 395 

with his purpose. At one o'clock on the 28th 
General Halleck sent word to Meade : " General 
Couch is also directed to co-operate with you and to 
move his forces as you may order.'"'' On the 28th 
Meade reported to Halleck: "If he (Lee) is crossing 
the Susquehanna I shall rely upon General Couch 
with his force holding him until I can fall upon his 
rear and give him battle,"t and on the 30th Meade 
sent a dispatch to Couch: "The army is in good 
spirits and we shall push to your relief or the en- 
gagement of the enemy as circumstances and the 
information we receive during the day and on the 
marches may indicate as most prudent and most 
likely to lead to ultimate success. . . . Can 
you keep the enemy from crossing the river?" J 
What Meade requested was accomplished. Early 
was prevented from crossing the Susquehanna at 
Wrightsville by the resistance he encountered and 
by the burning of the bridge, and at Harrisburg, 
Rodes, confronted by Couch, by the fortifications, 
and by abattis thrown across the highways, did not 
quite reach the river. 

* Halleck to Meade, War of Rebellion, No. 43, p. 62. 
f Meade to Halleck, War of Rebellion, No. 43, p. 67. 
J Meade to Couch, War of Rebellion, No. 43, p. 68. 



396 TWENTT-SIXTH PENNSYLVANIA 

At 12.15 ^^ ^^ 30th, General Halleck di- 
rected General Couch that "every possible effort 
should be made to hold the enemy in check on the 
Susquehanna till General Meade can give him bat- 
tle,"* and at seven o'clock on the next morning Meade 
sent a dispatch to Halleck, saying : " If General 
Couch has any reliable force I shall call upon him 
to move it to aid me,"t to which Halleck responded: 
"I have ordered General Couch to co-operate with 
you as far as possible." J In compliance with these 
orders, by command of General Couch, the Twenty- 
sixth Pennsylvania emergency infantry, together 
with some batteries of artillery and other infantry 
regiments, on the afternoon of the 30th, marched 
about four miles from the fort in pursuit of the 
enemy then in retreat from the Susquehanna. 

Almost immediately after the failure of Pickett s 
charge had been demonstrated, at ten o'clock on the 
night of the 3d of July, General Meade sent a dis- 
patch to General Couch suggesting the possibility 
that Lee would again assume an offensive attitude 

* Halleck to Couch, War of Rebellion, No. 45, p. 433. 
■j- Meade to Halleck, War of Rebellion, No. 43, p. 70. 
\ Halleck to Meade, War of Rebellion, No. 43, p. 71. 



EMERGENCr INFANTRT 397 

and await an attack, and saying that if so, "I will 
apprise you of the fact so soon as I am certain of it, 
and I then desire you either to form a junction with 
me, or, if in your judgment the same can be done 
without jeopardizing the safety of your command, 
attack him."* Lee, however, did not await the at- 
tack but retreated toward the Potomac. Couch 
then thought seriously of distributing his command 
among the regiments of the army of the Potomac as 
the best means of defending the state, but this plan 
was not carried into effect.f General W. F. Smith 
advanced from Harrisburg with all the available 
force and reached a point near Cashtown. It ap- 
pears that he sent a captain entirely around the 
rebel army to report to General Meade that he pro- 
posed to throw his force across the turnpike in the 
rear of Lee, not then knowing that the battle was 
ended. General Meade, who was anxious about the 
safety of Smith's position, instructed him that he 
had better return, and Smith philosophically says ; 
"I should have been two days earlier, and then 
such a move would have been of great service even 

* Meade to Couch, War of Rebellion, No. 45, p. 499. 
•j- Couch to Stanton, War of Rebellion, No. 45, p. 527. 



398 TWENTY-SIXTH PENNSYLVANIA 

if the militia had been very roughly handled, which 
would probably have been the case."* On the 8th 
of July General Halleck ordered General Couch 
that all the forces in his department should "be 
thrown forward to assist Meade,"t and on the loth 
he sent a dispatch to Meade that he thought it 
would be best " to postpone a general battle till you 
can concentrate all your forces and get up your re- 
serves and re-enforcements/'J Another desperate 
struggle between the two armies north of the Poto- 
mac was then anticipated. "I think," said Meade 
to Halleck, "the decisive battle of the war will be 
fought in a few days."§ The Twenty-sixth was at- 
tached to the brigade of Brigadier General Charles 
Yates and the division of Major General N. J. T. 
Dana, U. S. V., and on July 12th was sent by rail 
as far as Shippensburg and from there marched to 
Chambersburg. On the 14th, with 467 men in 
ranks, it marched to Greencastle. From Chambers- 
burg, Couch had sent word to Meade that he had 
with him at that point nine thousand men and eight 

^ Meade to Smith, War of Rebellion, No. 45, p. 539. 
•j- Halleck to Couch, War of Rebellion, No. 45, p. 611. 
J Halleck to Meade, War of Rebellion, No. 43, p. 89. 
§ Meade to Halleck, War of Rebellion, No. 43, p. 86. 



EMERGENCr INFANTRT 399 

guns, but was unable to move them for want of 
transportation for the suppUes. Under the spur of 
a dispatch from Halleck to Couch saying, sharply : 
"Take it wherever you can find it, and if you can 
find none go without it and live on the country. 
Do not stop at trifles at this crisis,"* we made our 
march of that day. General Couch did us the 
credit to report that he thought many of the Penn- 
sylvania troops would do well; and he notified 
Meade that Dana's division, twelve thousand strong, 
would be at Greencastle on the night of the 14th 
and at his disposal.f In the providence of God, 
however, it happened that we were not then to be 
subjected to the final test. On that day Lee with 
his army crossed the Potomac, a defeated and almost 
dismayed leader, with a broken army whose victo- 
ries were in the past and never more to recur. 

What may be termed the active campaigning 
of the Twenty-sixth, and perhaps no regiment ever 
had more of it within so short a space of time, there 

ended. 

And what was the outcome? Did the efforts 

* Halleck to Couch, War of Rebellion, No. 45, p. 678. 
f Couch to Smith and Halleck, War of Rebellion, No. 45, pp. 651, 
697. 



400 TWENTY-SIXTH PENNSYLVANIA 

of these earnest young soldiers have any appreciable 
effect upon the mighty struggle with which they 
became associated, or were they but a picturesque 
and interesting preliminary, worthy to be remem- 
bered as an incident, but without substantial conse- 
quence? Let us again turn to the official reports 
for the answer. Early's division consisted of the 
brigades of Hays, Smith, Hoke and Gordon, sup- 
ported as has been said by Jones's battalion of artil- 
lery and White's battalion of cavalry.* Early says 
in his report : " I moved towards Gettysburg and on 
reaching the forks of the road about one and a half 
miles from Cashtown, I sent General Gordon with 
his brigade and White's battalion of cavalry on the 
pike through Cashtown toward Gettysburg, and 
moved with the rest of the command to the left 
through Hilltown to Mummasburg. I had heard 
on the road that there was probably a force at 
Gettysburg, though I could get no definite infor- 
mation as to its size, and the object of this move- 
ment was for Gordon to amuse and skirmish with 
the enemy while I should get on his flank and rear 
so as to capture his whole force. On arriving at 

* War of Rebellion, No. 44, p. 285. 



EMERGENCY INFANTRY 401 

Mummasburg I ascertained that the force at Get- 
tysburg was small, and while waiting there for the 
infantry to come up, whose march was considerably 
delayed by the muddy condition of the roads, a 
company of French's cavalry that had been toward 
Gettysburg captured some prisoners, from whom it 
was ascertained that the advance of Gordon's force, 
a body of cavalry from White's battalion, had en- 
countered a regiment of militia, which fled at the 
first approach, and I immediately sent forward 
Colonel French with his cavalry to pursue this 
militia force, which he did, capturing a number of 
prisoners. Hays's brigade on arriving was also dis- 
patched toward Gettysburg, and the other brigades, 
with the artillery, were halted and encamped near 
Mummasburg. I then rode to Gettysburg and found 
Gordon just entering the town, his command hav- 
ing marched more rapidly than the other brigades, 
because it moved on a macadamized road. The 
militia regiment which had been encountered by 
White's cavalry was the Twenty-sixth Pennsylvania 
militia, consisting of eight or nine hundred men, 
and had arrived in Gettysburg the night before and 
moved that morning a short distance out on the 



402 TWENTT-SIXTli PENNSYLVANIA 

road towards Cashtown, but had fled on the first ap- 
proach of White's cavalry, taking across the fields 
between Mummasburg and Gettysburg and going 
toward Hunterstown. Of this force one hundred 
and seventy-five prisoners in all were captured and 
subsequently paroled. Hays's brigade was halted 
and encamped about a mile from Gettysburg, and 
two regiments were sent to aid French in the pur- 
suit of the fugitive militia, but could not get up 
with it."* 

Leaving out of view, because immaterial, the 
uncomplimentary allusions to ourselves and the 
somewhat exaggerated descriptions of rebel prowess, 
the facts which appear beyond question from this 
report are that Early used all of his division, and 
spent the whole day of the 26th of June in an 
unsuccessful effort to "amuse" and "capture" this 
regiment. The engagement on the Hunterstown 
road occurred between four and five o'clock in the 
afternoon, and he did not reach Gettysburg until 
after he had been informed of its result. He had 
been sent to meet the army of the Potomac, and, 
failing to find them, he encountered us. To him 

•j- Early's Report, War of Rebellion, No. 44, p. 465. 



EMERGENCY INFANTRY 403 

had been entrusted the most important duty com- 
mitted to any portion of the army of northern Vir- 
ginia — that of checking the advance of the army of 
Meade — and he had been himself held for one day 
by a regiment of undisciplined troops. The elab- 
orate preparations, which included " Gordon with 
his brigade and White's battalion of cavalry" on the 
Chambersburg pike, and Early with **the rest of 
the command" on the Mummasburg road, had no 
outcome but 176 useless prisoners, and one-fourth 
of the time before the impending battle wasted and 
lost. But this does not yet tell the whole story. 
Stuart had taken a wild ride around the rear and on 
the other side of the army of the Potomac from 
Lee, and communication with him was impossible. 
The only bodies of cavalry remaining with Lee were 
Jenkins's brigade and White's battalion.* Jenkins 
accompanied the invading army on the way up the 
Cumberland valley toward Harrisburg, and Lee was, 
therefore, utterly dependent upon White's battalion, 
which rode over the mountains with Early, to as- 
certain the whereabouts of the army of the Poto- 
mac. Lee was groping his way through an enemy's 

* Lee's Report, War of Rebellion, No. 44, p. 316. 



404 TfVENTT-SIXTH PENNSYLVANIA 

country without light. His waiHng cry for his cav- 
alry is almost as pathetic as that of the Roman 
emperor to Varus for his legions lost in the German 
woods. "The movements of the army preceding 
the battle of Gettysburg had been much embarrassed 
by the absence of the cavalry."* So late as the 
27th, the day after our engagement, be it noted, he 
laments: *' No report had been received that the 
federal army had crossed the Potomac, and the ab- 
sence of the cavalry rendered it impossible to obtain 
accurate information."t 

That body of cavalry, from which alone Lee 
could hope to get the facts necessary to determine 
his course, was engrossed in pursuing what they 
called the "fugitive militia," but Colonel Jennings, 
more skillful to save than General Early was to 
capture, by celerity of movement combined with 
firm resistance when it became necessary, thwarted 
every attempt and the regiment was not taken. To 
the military critic must be left the problem of de- 
termining the effect upon the impending battle of 
the detention for a v^hole day of Early's division and 

* Lee's Report, War of Rebellion, No 44, p. 321. 
■|- Lee's Report, War of Rebellion, No. 44, p. 307. 



EMERGENCY INFANTRT 405 



White's cavalry, the only part of Lee's army which 
was upon the same side of the mountains with Meade. 
The selection of Gettysburg as a battle-ground was 
fortuitous, or, at most, a sudden inspiration upon 
the part of Reynolds, who, when he met the enemy 
and saw the location, determined to fight. 

Colonel Garnett, of the rebel army, asserts: "I 
believe it was never General Lee's intention to fight 
a great battle so far from his base and that he was 
drawn into it by the want of information of the 
enemy's whereabouts."* 

If, perchance. Early, instead of sending White 
and French to the Hunterstown road, and hurrying 
up the infantry of Gordon and Hays in the vain 
task to which he devoted them on the 26th of June, 
had been able to report to Lee the position and 
movements of the army of the Potomac, v/ho can 
say that Rodes would not have made his assault 
upon Harrisburg on the 30th, or that a battle at 
Gettysburg would have ever occurred ? Unlike 
Meade, who permitted Stuart to ride at will. Early 

* Garnett' s Gettysburg, p. 9. 

" Yet it seems certain that neither Meade nor Lee had thought of it as 
a possible battle-ground until accident thrust it upon them." Drake's Get- 
tysburg, p. 13. 



4o6 TWENTT-SIXTH PENNSYLVANIA 

was diverted from his object and tempted from his 
duty. That Providence which rules the universe 
sometimes works out its ends by means that to the 
lesser comprehension of men seem inadequate, and 
in the great chain of cause and effect no link, how- 
ever apparently unimportant, can be omitted. If, 
in the play of events, your services were an essential 
factor at that crisis in the fate of America, your 
countrymen may well offer to you their grateful 
tribute, for you conferred upon them and upon their 
descendants for all the generations to come, benefits 
of incalculable magnitude.* If those services were 
not of such inestimable moment, it is still enough 
to preserve your memories green forever that in 

* This regiment, on June 26th, was the first to encounter and exchange 
shots with the invaders of 1863. Alleman's At Gettysburg, p. 16. 

" I immediately formed my Regt. in the field to the right of the road 
and opened fire on them, which checked them and caused them to move to 
the left of the road, and fall back on the infantry following them. . . . The 
conduct of the men under my command was such as could be desired." 
Official report of Colonel W. W, Jennings. 

'•Having been detached from General Lee's army my brigade had 
some days prior to the great battle passed through Gettysburg on our march 
to the Susquehanna. Upon those now historic hills I had met a small force of 
Union soldiers, and had there fought a diminutive battle." Reminiscences 
of the Civil War, General John B. Gordon, p. 140. 

" When Gordon's brigade of Early's division met the 26th Pennsyl- 
vania Regiment at Marsh Creek, as we have already seen, it was the begin- 



EMERGENCT INFANTRY 407 



Pennsylvania's time of trial you, her sons, were 
there to show that her resentful arm was raised to 
smite the foe, and that you, the first of all the 
troops of all the states, unaided and alone, met the 
rebel army upon the battlefield of Gettysburg. 

ning of a series of events which colored and determined all the issues of this 
campaign in a military sense. This regiment was as unconscious of the re- 
sultant consequences of its action as was Lee or anyone else. It was one of 
those insignificant events that so often are the important factors in great re- 
sults." Spear's The North and the South, p. 97. 

"It is an historical fact that owing to the advance movement of Col. 
Jennings' regiment Gettysburg became the battle ground." Circular No. 
270 of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion. 



THE ORIGIN OF 
THE UNIVERSITY OF 

PENNSYLVANIA 

[Presentation of facts, June 3d, 1899, before Mr. Charles C. Harri- 
son, provost, Mr. Samuel V. Merrick, Mr. Samuel Dickson, Right Reverend 
Ozi W. Whitaker, D. D., and Mr. John C. Sims, committee upon the 
University.] 

THE subject of our inquiry is the origin of 
the University of Pennsylvania. I presume 
there can be no doubt anywhere as to the 
attitude that we ought to maintain in conducting 
such an inquiry. The University cannot afford to 
make a claim of priority, or of antiquity, which is 
not supported by the evidence produced in favor ot 
it, and, on the other hand, it is equally clear that we 
ought not weakly to abandon a position which can 
be supported by such evidence. At the outset let 
us definitely understand just what is the nature of 
the inquiry. It seems to me that when you are 
looking for the origin you are asking when was 
the first movement commenced, which, being con- 



THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSITT 409 

tinued, constitutes an essential part of the organiza- 
tion. If you meet this requirement it is all that 
can be reasonably asked. And I do not think it is 
of importance in the inquiry as to whether or not 
the movement in its origin was regarded as one of 
importance. Some very great organizations are the 
result of initial movements which were apparently 
of very little consequence when they began. If we 
look for the origin of the oak tree, which is the great- 
est of all the vegetable productions, we find it in 
one of the smallest of the nuts, and the Amazon 
river, which is one hundred and fifty miles wide at 
its mouth, has its source in some spring up in the 
Andes mountains. The University has gone through 
a number of stages. It has been a charitable school, 
an academy, a college, and a university. Most of 
the writers who have examined the subject have been 
content, going further back than the University, and 
still further back than the college, to rest with the 
academy, and the reasons for it are natural enough. 
The gentlemen who were interested in the forma- 
tion of the academy were people of influence here in 
Philadelphia at the time. And when they gathered 
together they made their records, and they wrote their 



4IO THE ORIGIN OF THE 

pamphlets and their books, and naturally they did not 
underrate their own importance in that which they 
did, and the writers since have been content to look 
simply at their statements without wider investigation. 

But the time has arrived in the history of an 
institution which has reached great reputation and 
great influence, that we should be ready to look at 
all the facts, and if there was a prior movement still 
connected with the University, of importance in its 
history, we ought to be willing to go back and to 
give the credit of it to those who originated that 
movement, and to claim for ourselves such conse- 
quence as is due to greater antiquity. 

Each one of the charters of the University 
shows the existence of the charity school. The 
charter under which we are acting now is the act of 
1 79 1, and I read from that charter the direction: 
**That charity schools shall be supported, one for 
boys and the other for girls." The University as a 
university was established in 1779. Section 5 of the 
act of 1 779 provides for the appointment of a master 
and assistants ** to uphold and preserve the charitable 
school of the said university." The charter, which 
was granted on the i6th of June, 1755, recites the 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 411 



appointment of trustees and " that they had at their 
own expense, and by the donations of many well-dis- 
posed persons, set up and maintained an academy 
within our said city as well for instructing youth for 
reward as poor children on charity, and praying us to 
incorporate them and their successors." 

The first charter of the University is the act 
of July 13, 1753, and in its recital it sets forth: 
"Within our said city in maintaining an academy 
there as well for the instruction of poor children on 
charity as others whose circumstances have enabled 
them to pay for their learning," Now this chari- 
table feature of the University is still maintained in 
the free scholarships which are given to the city, 
and which were based upon that part of the general 
scheme. The minutes of the academy have little 
or nothing to say upon the subject of the charitable 
school. There is no contemporary printed article, 
no book, and no original paper known which shows 
that at the time the academy was designed the men 
who were instrumental in the foundation of it had any 
thought of the establishment of a charitable school. 
That idea was imposed upon them. They made that 
a part of the scheme of the academy because of 



412 THE ORIGIN OF THE 



some force which came from without. I want to 
point out to you where it originated. In 1740 there 
was erected here, under the auspices of George 
Whitefield, a building which had two objects. One 
was to provide a place for him, so that when he 
came here he might be able to preach to the people 
in it instead of going out upon the streets and into 
the fields, as he had been accustomed to do, and the 
other was to establish a charitable school. That the 
school was not successful seems to be clear, and 
when the men who organized the academy started 
in their work its trustees transferred their building, 
real estate and funds to those interested in the acad- 
emy, but they did it exercising some control, upon 
certain expressed conditions, and in maintenance of 
their trust. The deed, which was made by them in 
1749 to the trustees of the academy, had in it a 
trust which I am going to read to you. That trust 
was *' likewise to nominate and appoint one or more 
learned, able, sufficient person, or persons, as master 
or masters, usher or ushers, mistress or mistresses, to 
teach and instruct said children gratis in useful liter- 
ature and the knowledge of the Christian religion." 
Now where did that trust come from? I have 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 413 

here a copy from the Pennsylvania Magazine, vol- 
ume 22, page 49, of the advertisement issued by the 
trustees of the charitable school in July, 1740, and 
that advertisement sets forth as follows : " With 
this view it has been thought proper to erect a large 
building for a charity school for the instruction 
of poor children, gratis, in useful literature and the 
knowledge of the Christian religion." What I want 
to point out to you — and it seems to be conclusive 
upon the question — is that the identical words of 
this advertisement of July, 1740, are incorporated 
into the deed which gave you your home in 1749. 
If you examine it you will see that the trust for the 
charitable school is set out in precisely the same 
language in both papers. I think that it is not at all 
essential that I should go any further, because it is 
evident that such facts never happened by any chance. 
There is but one explanation of the trust then incor- 
porated into your organization, and which has been 
continued down to the present time, and that is that 
it came from the scheme inaugurated in 1740. 

I propose, however, not to rest here, but to call 
your attention to a number of authorities. Most of 
them, perhaps all of them, have never been referred 



414 THE ORIGIN OF THE 

to by anybody heretofore who has written upon the 
subject. I shall begin with the most recent, and 
read an extract from A 'Journal of Law^ published 
in Philadelphia in 1831. This legal periodical, as 
has been pointed out to me by Mr. Dickson, was 
edited by William M. Meredith, who, in his day, 
was the leader, or one of the leaders, in our profes- 
sion, and while, perhaps, it represents only the tra- 
ditions of the lawyers at that time, it comes from 
an intelligent man who was in association with the 
older members of the bar, and who was in a pro- 
fession where the necessity of evidence is always 
recognized. In an article on the University, page 
28, he says: "The charity school contains about 
one hundred and sixty scholars, of both sexes, who 
are taught gratuitously the elements of a solid Eng- 
lish education. The funds for its establishment and 
support were originally given by several benevolent 
individuals, and particularly by John Keble. Since 
its institution, in 1740, it is calculated that several 
thousand children have enjoyed the benefit of its in- 
structions. It has at present three well-qualified 
teachers, one in the female and two in the male de- 
partment. The grammar school, which, together 



UNIFERSITl" OF PENNSTLFANIA 415 

with the charity school, constituted under the title 
of the Academy and Charitable School, the founda- 
tion on which the college was afterward erected, has 
passed through various fortunes. It is associated 
with the recollections of boyhood to many individ- 
uals who now occupy the most distinguished stations 
in the several professions in our city; and the shrill 
summons of its piercing bell, and the shriller into- 
nations of several of its able instructors, as they 
plied the work of mental discipline on their youth- 
ful charge, are cherished topics of remembrance." 

As you see, he takes precisely the same view as 
that which I have presented to you. 

There was a volume of poems written by John 
Searson, formerly of Philadelphia, merchant, printed 
in Philadelphia in 1797. You would hardly expect 
to find information of this character in such a pub- 
lication, but he says, page 87, "In this small collec- 
tion of poems, I cannot persuade myself to pass 
over a recitation of the solemn hymn, sung through 
the States of America, on the death of that animat- 
ing, that admirable and instructive divine, the Rev. 
George Whitefield, with an anecdote of him. This 
gentleman, indeed, like his Master, * went about 



4i6 THE ORIGIN OF THE 

doing good.' I lived before and after his decease 
in the city of Philadelphia, having married there, 
and remember that it was he v^ho procured the 
orphan house of Georgia to be built, as also the col- 
lege and academy of Philadelphia." 

The next authority to which I ask your atten- 
tion, showing the importance of the charitable feat- 
ure in the life of the University, is a poem delivered 
at the public commencement in the College of Phil- 
adelphia, May I, 1760, by Francis Hopkinson. He 
was one of the first graduating class of the college. 
I believe it was his first appearance before his alma 
mater upon such an occasion, and the theme he 
chose was, " Charity." In his quite long poem, he 
expresses his views upon this subject, and closes : 

"Some such there are, without whose friendly care, 
Long had his seeds of glory slumbered there ; 
Without whose bounty all his powers had been 
The slaves of ignorance, perhaps of sin. 
Of deeds like these, Oh! who shall sing the praise, 
Weak is the muse, and feeble are her lays — 
But angels silver-tongued from heaven shall part 
To whisper blessings to the bounteous heart; 
And those who justly charity regard, 
Will find that virtue is her own reward." 

And to emphasize his thought, he adds a note saying 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNS7LVANIA 417 

that he refers to **the trustees of the college, who 
maintain a charity school for seventy poor children."* 
We now come to a contemporary period and 
writer. I have here an exceedingly scarce little 
political pamphlet, which was published in Phila- 
delphia in 1764. It is called "A Looking-glass for 
Presbyterians," and one of the charges which this 
political writer makes (page 19) against the Pres- 
byterians of that time (1764) is as follows: "The 
college in this City, planned upon the principles of 
moderation and liberty, and intended for the use 
and benefit of every denomination, is now got into 
the hands of a Presbyterian faction. The professors 
and tutors being generally chosen of that persuasion, 
lord it with such a high hand over other professions, 
that they are not contented with using their power 
to keep all others out, but are indefatigable in plan- 
ning to thrust those out who differ from them that 
are in." What I want you especially to notice is 
the statement, made at a time when the founders 
were living, that this college was "intended for the 
use and benefit of every denomination." Now that 
principle in the history of the University is of the 

*Hopkinson's Works, vol. iii, p. 58. 



4i8 THE ORIGIN OF THE 



very greatest importance, for the reason that the 
University arose over that very question, and when 
the act of 1779, which took the college estates 
away, was passed, it was based upon the ground that 
they had departed from their fundamental princi- 
ples, and their charters, and had fallen into the 
hands of one sect. The act recites : " Whereas, the 
college, academy, and charitable school of the City of 
Philadelphia, were at first founded on a plan of free 
and unlimited Catholicism ; but it appears that the 
trustees thereof, by a vote in the year 1764, have 
departed from the plan of the original founders, and 
narrowed the foundation of said institution." That 
was the ground upon which their charter was taken 
away and the University was established. Now 
where does that feature of your institution come 
from? There is not the slightest evidence to show 
anywhere that the founders of the academy had any 
such thought in their minds, but fortunately we 
have clear proof of the origin. It is not always 
that you can get evidence upon such remote points, 
but upon this question you have positive testimony. 
I shall read now from the Autobiography of Benja- 
min Franklin. In telling us concerning the build- 



UNI VERS ITT OF PENNSYLVANIA 419 



ing and the trustees of the charitable school, he 
says: ** It is to be noted that the contributions to 
this building being made by people of different sects, 
care was taken in the nomination of trustees, in 
whom the building and ground was to be vested, 
that a predominancy should not be given to any 
sect, lest in time that predominancy might be a 
means of appropriating the whole to the use of such 
sect, contrary to the original intention. It was 
therefore that one of each sect was appointed, viz., 
one Church of England man, one Presbyterian, one 
Baptist, one Moravian, etc., and those in cases of 
vacancy by death, were to fill it by election from 
among the contributors." 

In addition to this plain statement by Frank- 
lin, in going back to the advertisement of July, 
1740, you find that they set out: *' It has pleased 
Almighty God to visit with his Holy Spirit, the 
hearts and minds of many professing Christianity, 
however divided or distinguished in denomination 
or interest, so as to make them lay aside bigotry and 
party zeal." So that you have this feature of the 
original plan traced directly not to the academy 
but to the charitable school beyond it, and vou fur- 



420 THE ORIGIN OF THE 

ther find that the establishment of a university was 
due to the belief that that feature in the original 
design had been broken by the then trustees of the 
college and academy. 

I shall now read to you an extract from the 
address to the trustees of the academy, at its open- 
ing (1751), which was made by Richard Peters, 
who had been selected for that purpose, and I want 
you to look at it bearing in mind that Peters was 
one of the men connected with the organization of 
the academy, so that in order to understand it you 
have to read between the lines, as it were. "Thus 
successful, it became a matter of debate where to 
place the academy, and many arguments were offered 
for some village in the country as best favoring the 
morals of the youth, too apt to be corrupted by the 
bad examples abounding in populous cities. But 
when it came to be considered that it would take a 
large sum to erect proper buildings at a distance 
from the city; that the circumstances of many of 
the citizens would not admit of a distant place on 
account of the expense; that the trustees were men 
of business who could not be absent from their hab- 
itations without much inconvenience; and that the 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 421 

success of the whole, under God, would, in a great 
measure, depend, whether in town or country, on 
the personal care and attendance of those entrusted 
with the management, it was thought proper to fix 
it somewhere within the City ; and the more so, 
when the minds of the trustees of the building, 
where we are now assembled, came to be imparted. 
These thoughtful persons had been for some years 
sensible that this building was not put to its original 
use, nor was it in their power to set forward a char- 
ity school, which was also a part of the first design, 
and that it was more in the power of the trustees 
of the academy than of others to do it ; they there- 
fore made an offer to transfer their right in it to 
the use of the academy ; provided the debts, which 
remained unpaid, might be discharged, and the ar- 
rears of rent paid off. This was thankfully accepted, 
and a conveyance was executed, and on the settle- 
ment of the moneys due on account of the building, 
some of its trustees even generously forgave a con- 
siderable part of their just demands." 

It appears, therefore, from the statements of 
this address, that the determination to establish the 
academy in the city, in preference to the country 



422 THE ORIGIN OF THE 

was reached upon consideration of the views of the 
trustees of the charitable school ; that the specific 
location of the academy was fixed by the convenient 
and suitable structure which they had previously 
erected; that they conveyed, without charge or re- 
turn of outlays, the building in which the work of 
the academy was begun, and for many years con- 
tinued ; and, further, that they gave a portion of the 
moneys needed by the academy as a contribution to 
its purposes. 

Peters says, moreover: "Whilst I am acknowl- 
edging their merit, let me not forget to do justice 
to their absent co-trustee for his ready and hearty 
concurrence, signified in his letter to the president 
on that subject." That co-trustee was George 
Whitefield, and in the letter he wrote from Eng- 
land to the president, dated February 26, 1750, he 
said: "I think also that in such an institution there 
should also be a well-approved Christian orator, who 
should not be content with giving a public lecture 
upon oratory in general, but who should visit and 
take part with every class and teach them early how 
to speak and read and pronounce well. An hour or 
two in a day ought to be set apart for this. . . . 



UNIVERSITT OF PENNSYLVANIA 423 

I should also like the youths to board in the acsd- 
emy, and by this means to be always under the 
master's eye. ... If these ends are answered, a 
free school erected, the debts paid, and a place pre- 
served for public preaching, I do not see what reason 
there is for any one to complain," You will observe 
that he was perhaps the first to suggest the dormito- 
ries which have only recently been erected, but 
what I want you especially to notice is the tone of 
the letter. It is not that of a man who is making 
a surrender, but that of one who has the situation 
well within his own control, and who is expressing 
the views which, in his judgment, ought to be im- 
pressed upon the academy they were then starting. 
Whitciield was an orator — one of the greatest the 
world has ever seen, — and naturally his attention 
was directed toward that subject, and he tells us in 
this letter how he thinks oratory should be taught. 
In his view, it is essential, and ought to be taught 
not only by the professor's giving general public lec- 
tures, but by his going to each pupil and seeing that 
he is taught to pronounce properly and read well. 
In connection with that subject, I want to show you, 
from the description which Dr. William Smith 



424 THE ORIGIN OF THE 

wrote of the academy, how that direction was car- 
ried into effect. In the papers of Dr. Smith, 
printed in London in 1762, upon pages 100 and 
112, he says: "Oratory and the correct speaking 
and writing of EngUsh are branches of education 
too much neglected, as is often visible in the pub- 
lic performances of some very learned men. But, 
in the circumstances of this province, such a neg- 
lect would have been still more inexcusable than 
in any other part of the British Dominions; for, be- 
ing made up of so great a mixture of people, from 
almost all corners of the world, necessarily speaking 
a variety of languages and dialects, the true pro- 
nunciation and unity of our own language might 
soon be lost, without such a previous care to pre- 
serve them in the rising generation." And this is 
the way he says it was done : " For attaining this, 
a small rostrum is erected in one end of the school 
and the youth are frequently exercised in reading 
aloud from it, or in the delivery of short orations, 
while the professor of English and oratory stands 
by to correct whatever may be amiss either in 
speech or in gesture." So that when the academy 
was established, the teaching of oratory was fol- 



UNI VERS ITT OF PENNSYLVANIA 425 

lowed upon precisely the plan indicated by White- 
field in his letter. 

Mr. Harrison informs me that this method of 
teaching oratory was continued at the University 
until a very recent period. 

I have now gone substantially over the evi- 
dence which I intended to present to you. No 
doubt further inquiry would bring out still other 
points, but there already has been established, I 
hope to your satisfaction, enough to prove that 
much of the organization of the University was 
derived from the charitable school of 1740. To 
resume, it has been shown that the determination 
to put the academy in Philadelphia; the location of 
the academy on Fourth street; the building itself 
in which all the exercises were conducted for the 
greater part of a century ; the charitable idea which 
has run through all of your charters and still ex- 
ists; the very considerable proportion of the moneys 
used for the establishment of the academy ; its 
feature of catholicity, about which there can be not 
the slightest question, and which has been of the 
greatest consequence in the history ot the Univer- 
sity; and the establishment of the school of oratory 



426 THE ORIGIN OF THE 

and its methods can be traced directly to the chari- 
table school. 

Now it does seem to me that with all of these 
facts before us, if we should attempt to disregard 
them, or to set them aside, we should not only com- 
mit a grave injustice to those who did so much to 
benefit the cause, but display singular inaptitude and 
want of good judgment. 

Perhaps before concluding, I ought to say that 
the view which I have been presenting to you with 
respect to the origin of the University has been ac- 
cepted by most of those who have recently written 
about our institution. Dr. McMaster and the late 
Thompson Westcott, who was perhaps our leading 
local historian, both entertained that view, although 
neither of them had the opportunity to consider 
the papers I have presented to you here. There is, 
however, one exception, and that is an exception of 
importance. There was no man who was better 
informed with respect to our history and more earn- 
est in its investigation, than the late Dr. Frederick 
D. Stone. He wrote a chapter for the recent edi- 
tion of the History of the University by Dr. Wood, 
in which he takes a different view. In his preface 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 427 

Dr. Stone says that it is a controversial chapter. 
Now I believe I have never known in my experience 
of any claim which has ever been made in behalf 
of the importance or priority of Philadelphia, that 
there did not arise some Philadelphian who was 
ready to enter into a controversy to show that the 
claim was not well founded. The main evidence 
upon which Dr. Stone rested he set forth in this 
paragraph : " No charity school had been opened 
up to August, 1747, as in that month a petition was 
presented to the assembly by some of the subscribers 
to the new building, stating that the establishment 
of a charity school was a part of the original 
scheme; that none had been established; and they 
therefore prayed that the trustees be obliged to pay 
the petitioners their subscriptions, or that an act be 
passed to sell the building and devote the proceeds 
to that purpose." 

To begin with, there is a miscitation of the 
evidence. In that petition which was presented to 
the assembly it was not said that no charity school 
**had been established." The entire extract from 
the Votes of Assembly, Vol. IV, page 59, is as fol- 
lows: "6 mo., 8th, 1747. A petition from sundry 



428 THE ORIGIN OF THE 

persons, inhabitants of the City of Philadelphia, set- 
ting forth that they contributed largely, according 
to their respective circumstances, towards the build- 
ing of a house in the said City which was intended 
to be a charity school for the instruction of poor 
children gratis in the knowledge of the Christian 
religion and in useful literature, and also for a place 
of public worship : But the trustees not having ex- 
ecuted their trust, the principal end for which the 
petitioners engaged in the subscription and paid their 
money is not in the least degree answered; and 
therefore praying that the said trustees may be com- 
pelled to refund and pay the money advanced by 
the petitioners as well as their other just demands; 
or otherwise that leave may be given to bring in a 
bill for the sale of the said building for that purpose 
was presented to the house and read and ordered to 
lie on the table." 

As you see, that was a petition presented to the 
legislature upon the part of some people who had 
contributed moneys, and who wanted the building 
to be sold and the moneys to be paid back to them. 
They were therefore in the position of plaintiffs in 
a cause. Dr. Stone, unfortunately, has taken that 



UNIVERSITT OF PENNSYLVANIA 429 

statement of the plaintiffs as though it were neces- 
sarily correct, and then he has put an interpretation 
upon their language, and then he has given you not 
what they say, but what was his interpretation, as a 
fact. But on the same page of the minutes of the 
assembly is this entry: "A petition from Charles 
Brockden and James Read, two of the trustees of 
the house commonly called the new building, was 
presented to the house and read, setting forth their 
purpose to lay before the house a full and particular 
answer to the petition and complaint of John Coats 
and Edmund Woolley, but several of their number 
whose concurrence they would willingly have therein 
being at present out of the province, or at a consid- 
erable distance, and so have had no opportunity to 
see the copy of the said petition, they request the 
house would indulge with further time for the pur- 
pose. Ordered to lie on the table." 

So it appears that the defendants in this cause 
were ready to file an answer, and that the facts, what- 
ever they were, were in dispute, and what more 
appears is that if there ever was any decision it was 
in favor of the defendants, because the men who 
presented that original petition wanted to sell the 



430 



THE ORIGIN OF THE 



building, and we know that that power never was 
granted. In addition to that fact, if you look at the 
words of the petition, you will see that what they 
say is not that there was no charitable school estab- 
lished, but that the principal end was not accom- 
plished, and to find out their meaning it is necessary 
to ascertain what was the principal end. There 
were two ends to be accomplished. One was to 
erect a charitable school and the other was to provide 
for the preaching of Whitefield, and Whitefield was 
not in America, so that it is also altogether probable 
that the principal end was the preaching of White- 
field rather than the charitable school. In any event 
the meaning of the paper remains in doubt and its 
allegations, whatever they were, were to be met by 
an answer, which fact Dr. Stone entirely ignored. 

In conclusion, even if you should determine 
that the charitable school was a very unimportant 
affair, and one not at all successful, which I believe 
to be the truth, you will be entirely justified in your 
claim by the precedents furnished by the action of 
other and earlier colleges. 

Harvard University celebrated on the 8th of 
September, 1836, her two hundredth anniversary, 



UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 431 



so that she claimed as the date of her beginning 
September 8, 1636. But Harvard, who gave by 
will the money for her foundation, did not die until 
September 26, 1638, two years later. In seeking to 
establish the earliest possible time, the university 
relies upon this action of the court: "September 
8, 1636: The court agreed to give four hundred 
pounds towards a school or college, whereof two 
hundred pounds shall be paid the next year and two 
hundred pounds when the work is finished, and the 
next court to appoint where and what building." 
So you see all that they have of a tangible charac- 
ter to support the claim is a promise upon the part 
of somebody to pay two hundred pounds a year 
afterwards, and yet it has never been a subject of 
criticism. 

Yale claims as the date of her origin the year 
1 70 1. Such school as was then established was at 
Saybrook, and it was not until 171 6 that a building 
was erected at New Haven, and the year after their 
asserted origin there was just one stray young man 
who came to be instructed. 

When, therefore, you are able to show facts of 
much more moment than those upon which these 



432 THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSITY 



precedents are based, that in 1740 you had a com- 
modious building erected, a large sum of money 
already contributed, and the organization of a char- 
itable school under a board of trustees which has 
continued without lapse down to the present, it 
seems to me that the most pronounced hypercrit- 
icism cannot object to your contention that that 
date is properly the date of your origin. 



THE UNIVERSITY OF 
PENNSYLVANIA 

IN ITS 

RELATIONS TO THE STATE 

[Written for the Pennsylvania Magazine oj History and Biography, 
April, 1 89 1.] 

THE settlement of Pennsylvania being due to 
the unrest of the members of a religious 
sect whose advanced thought brought them 
into conflict with existing conditions in England, 
and the moral and mental breadth of its founder 
having led him to offer it as a home, not only for 
those of his own way of thinking, but for all in 
that island and upon the continent who had in vain 

* In the preparation of this paper I have used freely Dr. Stille's 
" Memoir of William Smith" and Wickersham's " History of Education 
in Pennsylvania," and I am indebted to Mr. F. D. Stone for calling my 
attention to the interesting fact that the constitution of 1776 provided ex- 
pressly for university education. 



434 THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 

wrestled against intolerance, it was but natural that 
his province should attract more men of learning 
than other colonies whose promoters were simply 
seeking for profit, or were bent upon the enforce- 
ment of illiberal policies. Therefore it came about 
that among the early colonists of Pennsylvania were 
an unusual number of men of scholarly attainments, 
some of whom had been doughty champions upon 
one side or the other in the polemical warfare then 
being everywhere waged, a struggle necessary for, 
and preparatory to, the establishment of the princi- 
ple that humanity is capable of governing itself. 
Penn, the founder of a successful state and a prac- 
tical legislator whose work has stood the test of 
time, as well as the most conspicuous figure among 
the colonizers of America, was a student of Oxford 
University and a profuse writer of books of verse, 
travel, doctrine, and controversy, which made a 
strong impress upon the thought of his time. 
James Logan devoted the leisure left to him after 
attending to the interests of the proprietor to the 
translation from the Latin of the Cato Major and 
the Moral Distichs, and he collected a library of 
rare books which was then unrivalled upon this side 



IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE STATE 435 

of the Atlantic, and even now would be considered 
extraordinary. David Lloyd, a lawyer, ready and 
pertinacious in the discussion of all questions affect- 
ing the polity of the province, was equally skillful 
in the drafting of acts of assembly and the compi- 
lation of the laws. George Keith, trained in the 
schools of Edinburgh, was the author of numerous 
treatises upon theology, and, together with Penn 
and Robert Barclay, of Ury, defended the Quaker 
doctrines against the assaults of the learned divines 
of the European churches. Francis Daniel Pasto- 
rius, lawyer, linguist, and philosopher, proud of his 
pedigree, and fresh from the public discussion of 
abstruse questions of ethics and government upon 
the university platforms of the continent, signalized 
his arrival at Germantown by the preparation and 
publication, in 1690, of his "Four Treatises," and 
left for future generations a bibliography in manu- 
script of the volumes in his library. Ludwig, Count 
Zinzendorf, of noble lineage and influential surround- 
ings, came with the Moravians, whose leader he 
was, to the hills of the Lehigh, but was not pre- 
vented by the practical duties of looking after the 
welfare of his flock from writing numerous collec- 



436 THE UNIVERSITT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

tions of hymns, sermons and addresses. Christopher 
Taylor, familiar with the Latin, Greek and Hebrew 
languages, of which he had prepared and published 
a text-book, had long been the head of a school at 
Edmonton in Essex. Not only were there many 
such individual instances of more than ordinary 
learning, but the sects from which the early popu- 
lation of Pennsylvania was mainly drawn, though 
they regarded the amusements and adornments of 
life as frivolities by means of v/hich Satan was en- 
abled to lead souls astray, were, nevertheless, people 
of great intellectual activity, finding prolific expres- 
sion abroad in a flood of publications, and it was 
not surprising that soon the printing-houses of the 
Bradfords, Keimer, Sower, Ephrata, Franklin, and 
Bell, the most productive in the colonies, sprang up 
here to supply their mental needs. A community 
with such examples before them, and permeated 
with such influences, could not long remain without 
an institution giving the opportunities for the higher 
education of youth. The frame of government 
announced by Penn as early as April 25, 1682, pro- 
vided that the "Governor and Provincial council 
shall erect and order all publick schools and encour- 



IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE STATE 437 

age and reward the authors of useful sciences and 
laudable inventions," and directed the council to 
form a "committee of manners, education, and arts, 
that all wicked and scandalous living may be pre- 
vented, and that youth may be successively trained 
up in virtue and useful knowledge and arts." At 
the meeting of the council on the 1 7th of Eleventh 
Month, 1683, a "school of arts and sciences" was 
proposed, and in 1689 the William Penn Charter 
School, still in existence and doing most valuable 
work, was formally opened. Following the sugges- 
tion of the petition of Anthony Morris, Samuel 
Carpenter, Edward Shippen, David Lloyd, and 
others, the assembly, in its charter granted in 1 7 1 i , 
provided for the instruction of "poor children" in 
" reading, work, languages, arts, and sciences." 
This school, in its successful operation, was the fore- 
runner of the University of Pennsylvania, and the 
later institution had, like its predecessor, its origin 
in that spirit of broad philanthropy, regardful of 
the welfare of the lowly, which has ever been char- 
acteristic of Philadelphia, and has resulted in the 
establishment of so many of her public institutions. 
In 1740 a number of citizens of different reli- 



438 THE UN I VERS ITT OF PENNSYLVANIA 



gious denominations united in raising subscriptions 
for the purpose of erecting a large building to be 
used as a charity school for the instruction of poor 
children gratis in useful literature and the Christian 
religion, and also as a place of public worship. In 
addition to the establishment of the school, they 
had in view the special object of providing a con- 
venient house in which George Whitefield could 
preach whenever he came to Philadelphia. The lot 
was purchased on the 15 th of September of that 
year and the building was erected. Subsequently 
the design was enlarged to include the idea of an 
academy, and on the ist of February, 1749, the lot 
and buildings were conveyed to James Logan and 
twenty-three other trustees, upon the trust that they 
should keep a house or place of worship for the use 
of such preacher as they should judge qualified, and 
particularly for the use of Whitefield, and a free 
school for the instructing, teaching, and education 
of poor children, and should have power to found 
an "academy, college, or other seminary of learning 
for instructing youth in the languages, arts and sci- 
ences." The same year Benjamin Franklin, ever 
quick to catch inspiration from the events occurring 



IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE STATE 439 

around him, published his " Proposals relating to 
the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania." He al- 
leges in his autobiography that the foundation of 
the academy was due to the publication of this 
paper and his own subsequent personal efforts. He 
says: *'This I distributed among the principal in- 
habitants gratis; and as soon as I could suppose 
their minds prepared by the perusal of it I set on 
foot a subscription for opening and supporting an 
academy — avoiding as much as I could, according 
to my usual rule, the presenting myself to the pub- 
lick as the author of any scheme for their benefit." 
The question may be raised whether this account, 
written many years later, is quite accurate. Dr. 
Caspar Wistar, a contemporary, and himself long 
identified with the work and fame of the Univer- 
sity, says, in his "Eulogium on William Shippen," 
p. 21, while speaking of the services of Phineas 
Bond: "In conjunction with the much respected 
Thomas Hopkinson, he originated the scheme of 
the college now the University of Pennsylvania." 
The trustees, among whom Thomas Hopkinson, 
Tench Francis, and Richard Peters, with Franklin, 
appear to have been particularly active and efficient. 



440 THE UN I VERS ITT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

secured among themselves and their friends an en- 
dowment for the academy amounting to eight 
hundred pounds a year for five years, and the city 
gave an additional sum of one hundred pounds a 
year for five years, and two hundred pounds in cash. 
The institution thus established was incorpo- 
rated by Thomas and Richard Penn, proprietors 
and governors of the province, on the 13th of July, 
1753, under the name of "The Trustees of the 
Academy and Charitable School in the Province of 
Pennsylvania." The charter sets out, that it hav- 
ing been represented by the trustees named that for 
establishing an academy ** as well to instruct youth 
for reward as poor children whose indigent and 
helpless circumstances demand the charity of the 
opulent," several benevolent persons have paid sub- 
scriptions expended in the purchase of lands and a 
building commodious for maintaining an academy 
"as well for the instruction of poor children as 
others whose circumstances have enabled them to 
pay for their learning," and that favoring such use- 
ful and charitable designs, the trustees are given 
power to purchase lands, to receive any sum of 
money or goods " therewith to erect, set up, main- 



IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE STATE 441 

tain, and support an academy or any other kind of 
seminary of learning in any place within the said 
province of Pennsylvania where they shall judge 
the same to be most necessary and convenient for 
the instruction, improvement, and education of 
youth in any kind of literature, erudition, arts, and 
sciences which they shall think proper to be taught;" 
to sue and be sued, and to have a seal, and to make 
ordinances and statutes for their government. A 
confirmatory charter was granted by the same pro- 
prietaries, dated June 16, 1755, which changed 
the name to that of **The Trustees of the College, 
Academy, and Charitable School of the Province of 
Pennsylvania," and limited the power to hold lands 
to an amount not exceeding five thousand pounds 
sterling in yearly value; and gave power to confer 
degrees and to appoint a provost, vice-provost, and 
professors. It is thus seen that the plan of the 
charitable school which originated in 1740 is not 
only maintained in the deed of 1749 and in both 
of the charters, but is made an essential and con- 
spicuous feature of the design. It is of importance 
to call particular attention to this fact, because in all 
printed accounts of the University heretofore its 



442 THE UN I VERS ITT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

origin has been assigned to the efforts of 1749, 
though the movement really began with the sub- 
scription purchase of land and erection of a build- 
ing for a charitable school nine years before, and 
the institution is entitled to claim 1740 as the 
date of its birth, and philanthropy as its primary 
object.* 

By the confirmatory charter of 1755, the Rev. 
William Smith, M. A., was, at the request of the 
trustees, appointed the first provost. He was a native 
of Aberdeen in Scotland, and was graduated from 
the university there, became a clergyman of the 
Church of England, and coming first to New York 
and subsequently to Philadelphia, where an article 
written by him upon "The College of Mirania " 
had made a favorable impression, he was selected to 
take charge of the college and academy in 1754. 
To his intelligence, energy and activity in its be- 
half its immediate and great success was mainly 
due. He submitted a plan of education, adopted 
and carried into effect in 1756, more comprehensive, 
as Dr. Stille tells us, than any other then in exist- 

* " There is also an Academy, or College, originally built for a Taber- 
nacle by Mr. Whitefield." Burnaby, p. 60. 



IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE STATE 443 

ence in the American colonies.'^ When in England, 
in 1759, he secured from Thomas Penn a deed con- 
veying for the benefit of the college one-fourth of 
the manor of Perkasie, in Bucks county, consisting 
of about two thousand five hundred acres of land, and 
finding it in debt, he went again abroad, in 1762, 
and in two years, by indomitable exertion, secured, 
notwithstanding the opposition of Dr. Franklin, 
who "took uncommon pains to misrepresent our 
academy," the very large sum of ^6921 7s. 6d. Ot 
this amount, Thomas Penn, the chief patron of the 
college, whose gifts for the purpose during his life 
equalled ^4500, contributed ^^500, the king ;^2oo, 
and there were over eleven thousand other contrib- 
utors. In those days the pursuits of men were not 
so much differentiated as they have since become, 
and, as might have been expected from one with 
the acquirements and mental activities of Dr. Smith, 
his voice was heard and his hand was felt in all of 
the affairs of the province. As a clergyman, he 
preached fast-day sermons ; as an orator, he delivered 

* Rev. Andrew Burnaby, D.D., says, in his "Travels through North 
America in 1760," "This last institution is erected upon an admirable plan, 
and is by far the best school of learning throughout America.^'' Third edi- 
tion, p. 66. 



444 THE UNIFERSITT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

addresses upon public occasions; he made investiga- 
tions in astronomy and other sciences, edited a 
magazine, and, moreover, he was a speculator in 
lands, and an active politician. He was regarded as 
the exponent of the views of the college and the 
custodian of its interests, and while it was benefited 
by his exertions, it also suffered through the antag- 
onisms he aroused. A churchman and a friend of 
the proprietors, he cordially disliked and opposed 
the Quakers, who elected the assembly and con- 
trolled public affairs, and the German Mennonites, 
Dunkers, and Moravians, through whose support 
they were able to do it. In 1755 he published a 
political pamphlet in which he denounced the 
Quakers for being influenced by interest rather than 
conscience, and accused the Germans of sympathiz- 
ing with the French in their aggressions. He mar- 
ried the daughter of William Moore, president 
judge of the court of common pleas of Chester 
county, an aristocratic and influential personage, 
living on his estate at Moore Hall, on the Picker- 
ing creek, twenty-five miles from the city. 

On the 23d of November, 1755, Moore, who, 
besides holding his peaceful judicial office, was a 



IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE STATE 445 

colonel in the militia, wrote a letter to the assembly, 
saying that he was coming down to Philadelphia 
with two thousand men to compel them to pass a 
law providing means for military protection. His 
letter marked the beginning of a struggle that shook 
the whole province and was fraught with baleful 
consequences to both Smith and the college. During 
the succeeding two years numerous petitions were 
presented to the assembly, charging Moore with 
tyranny, injustice, and even extortion, in the con- 
duct of his office, and asking that he might be re- 
moved. The assembly, after a hearing, many times 
adjourned in order to give him an opportunity to 
be heard, but which he declined to attend upon the 
ground that they had no authority to make the in- 
vestigation, determined that he was guilty of the 
wrongs charged. Soon afterwards, October 1 9, 
1757, he wrote and published a paper wherein he 
fiercely reviewed their action, calling it ** virulent 
and scandalous," and a "continued string of the 
severest calumny and most venomous epithets, con- 
ceived in all the terms of malice and party rage." 
Immediately after the meeting of the new assembly, 
composed for the most part of the same members 



446 THE UN I VERS ITT OF PENNS7''LVJNIA 

as the preceding, they sent the sergeant-at-arms with 
a warrant for the arrest of Moore and of Dr. Smith, 
who was supposed to have aided in the preparation 
of the paper. Upon being brought before the as- 
sembly, they refused to make a defence, though 
Moore admitted he had written the paper, and de- 
clined to retract any of its statements, and it was 
ordered that he be confined until he should recant, 
and the address be burned by the hangman. They 
were given into the custody of the sheriff and 
were kept in jail in Philadelphia for about three 
months, "herding with common thieves and felons," 
but after the adjournment of the assembly were re- 
leased on a writ of habeas corpus. Smith went to 
England to prosecute an appeal to the crown, and 
on February 13, 1760, "His Majesty's high dis- 
pleasure" was announced to the assembly at their 
unwarrantable behavior in assuming power that did 
not belong to them, and invading the royal prerog- 
ative and the liberties of the people. It was a per- 
sonal triumph for Dr. Smith, but ere long came the 
Revolutionary war, when his opponents grasped the 
reins of power, and neither the royal government 
nor the king himself could render him any aid. 



IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE STATE 447 

Early in 1779 the assembly appointed a com- 
mittee "To inquire into the present state of the 
college and academy," and in July, General Joseph 
Reed, president of the state, suggested to the trus- 
tees that since some of them were under legal dis- 
qualifications, it would be wise not to hold a public 
commencement. When the new assembly met, in 
September, the president in his message said, with 
reference to the college, that it *' appears by its 
charter to have allied itself . . . closely to the gov- 
ernment of Britain by making the allegiance of its 
governors to that State a prerequisite to any official 
act," and that he could not think " the good people 
of this State can or ought to rest satisfied or the 
protection of the government be extended to an in- 
stitution framed with such attachments to the Brit- 
ish government, and conducted with a general 
inattention to the authority of the State." A com- 
mittee appointed to consider the subject reported, 
recommending a bill which should "secure to every 
denomination of Christians equal privileges, and es- 
tablish said college on a liberal foundation, in which 
the interests of American liberty and independence 
will be advanced and promoted, and obedience and 



448 THE UNIFERSITT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

respect to the constitution of the State preserved." 
An act of assembly was thereupon passed, Novem- 
ber 27, 1779. It set out that the trustees had 
narrowed the foundations of the institution, and it 
declared the charters of 1753 and 1755 void. It 
provided that the estate, real and personal, should 
be vested in a board of trustees, consisting of the 
president and vice-president of the supreme execu- 
tive council of the commonwealth, the speaker of 
the assembly, the chief-justice of the supreme court, 
the judge of admiralty, and the attorney-general, 
the senior ministers of the Episcopal, Presbyterian, 
Baptist, Lutheran, German Calvinist, and Roman 
churches in the city, Benjamin Franklin, William 
Shippen, Frederick A. Muhlenberg, James Searle, 
William A, Atlee, John Evans, Timothy Matlack, 
David Rittenhouse, Jonathan Bayard Smith, Samuel 
Morris, George Bryan, Thomas Bond, and James 
Hutchinson, by the name of " The Trustees of the 
University of the State of Pennsylvania," and di- 
rected that confiscated estates of the yearly value of 
not over fifteen hundred pounds should be reserved 
for the maintenance of the provost and assistants 
and to uphold "the charitable school of the said 



IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE STATE 449 

University." An oath of allegiance to the com- 
monwealth was substituted for the former one to 
the crown, and means were provided to compel a 
transfer of the property by the trustees of the col- 
lege to the trustees appointed by the act. This 
action of the assembly has been characterized as a 
simple act of spoliation, and so much of it as took 
away the estates and franchises of the college was 
repealed in 1789, upon the ground that it was "re- 
pugnant to justice, a violation of the constitution of 
the Commonwealth, and dangerous in its precedent 
to all incorporated bodies." Its supporters had suc- 
ceeded in driving Dr. Smith away from the city, 
but they had not been able to infuse life into the 
new University, and, though aided by a loan by the 
state of two thousand pounds, it languished in debt. 
The effect of the repeal was to renew the college, 
and, in consequence, there were two institutions 
having in view substantially the same objects and 
seeking the same support. They were united by an 
act of assembly of September 30, 1791, which pro- 
vided for the vesting of the estates of both in a 
board of new trustees, consisting of twelve elected 
by each, and the governor of the commonwealth. 



450 THE UN I VERS ITT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

under the name of " The Trustees of the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania," who were given power "to 
do everything needful and necessary to the establish- 
ment of the said University and the good govern- 
ment and education of the youth belonging to the 
same, and to constitute a faculty or learned body to 
consist of such head or heads and such a number of 
professors in the arts and sciences, and in law, med- 
icine, and divinity as they shall judge necessary and 
proper." The connection of the institution with 
the state was maintained by providing that the gov- 
ernor should be one of the trustees, and that an 
annual statement of the funds should be laid before 
the legislature. This final act of fundamental legis- 
lation affecting the grant of rights to the University 
declared that "charity schools shall be supported, 
one for boys and the other for girls," thus preserv- 
ing the chief thought which was in the minds of its 
originators in 1740. The school intended in its be- 
ginning to be a charity had been enlarged into a 
college and academy to teach the arts and sciences 
in 1753, and had now grown into a university, in- 
cluding in its course instruction in law, medicine, 
and divinity. 



IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE STATE 451 



The school of medicine was opened in 1765 
by Dr. John Morgan, that of law in 1791 by Jus- 
tice James Wilson, and each was the first upon that 
special subject in America. 

The reservation of confiscated estates in the act 
of 1779 was the first direct contribution made by 
the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to the cause of 
higher education. The lands so reserved were esti- 
mated to be worth ^25,000, and in 1785 their an- 
nual value was ;^ i 3 8 1 5s. 7>^ d. By the act of March 
19, 1807, the sum of $3000 was granted "out of 
the monies they owe the State," to the trustees, 
"for the purpose of enabling them to establish a 
garden for the improvement of the science of bot- 
any and for instituting a series of experiments to 
ascertain the cheapest and best food for plants and 
their medicinal properties and virtues."* By act of 
May 5, 1832, their real estate in the city of Phila- 
delphia was exempted from "county, poor, and 
corporation taxes" for fifteen years. A general act 
which became a law April 16, 1838, exempted 

*In W. P. C. Barton's "Compendium Florae Philadelphicas," pub- 
lished in 1818, there are numerous references to plants in the botanical 
garden of the University. 



452 THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 

" all universities, colleges, academies, incorporated, 
erected, ordained, or established by virtue of any 
law of this commonwealth, with the grounds thereto 
annexed, from all and every county, road, city, 
borough, poor, and school tax." This act received 
judicial construction in the case of the City of Phil- 
adelphia vs. The Trustees, 8 Wright, 360, where it 
was held that the medical hall of the University, 
occupied by the faculty, whose compensation was 
derived from the proceeds of their respective chairs, 
was under it exempt from taxation. Section i, Ar- 
ticle IX, of the present constitution of the state 
provides that the assembly may by general law ex- 
empt from taxation " institutions of purely public 
charity," and the act of May 14, 1874, passed in 
pursuance of this article of the constitution, relieves 
from county, city, borough, bounty, road, school, 
and poor tax all universities, colleges, seminaries, 
and academies " endowed and maintained by public 
or private charity." 

In 1838 the legislature made provision for an 
annual appropriation of one thousand dollars for ten 
years to each university maintaining four professors 
and instructing one hundred students. The Univer- 



IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE STATE 453 

sity of Pennsylvania received the annual sum until 
1843. ^^ ^^^^ y^^^ ^^^ appropriation was reduced 
one-half, and the following year it failed utterly. 
The act of May 11, 1871, extended the power of 
the trustees to acquire real and personal property, 
and enabled them to hold an additional amount to 
the clear annual value of thirty thousand dollars. 
In 1872 the state gave to the University the sum 
of one hundred thousand dollars upon condition 
that it should raise an additional sum of two hun- 
dred and fifty thousand dollars, *'the entire appro- 
priation to be expended in the erection of a gen- 
eral hospital in connection with said institution, in 
which at least two hundred beds free for persons 
injured shall be forever maintained," and the fol- 
lowing year a further sum of one hundred thousand 
dollars for the same purpose, upon the condition 
that it should raise a like amount. By the act of 
May 29, 1889, the state made an appropriation of 
twelve thousand five hundred dollars, to be paid to 
the trustees for the erection of a veterinary hos- 
pital, upon the condition that they should furnish 
free of cost "to deserving young men of this state 
to the number of not less than twelve in attendance 



454 THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 

at one time, said young men to be nominated by 
the governor of the commonwealth, and in per- 
petuity, free instruction in the art and science of 
veterinary medicine and surgery." It is interest- 
ing to note that this last act of legislation affecting 
the welfare of the University is one of generosity 
upon the part of the state, looking toward en- 
larged usefulness in the conduct of the institution 
and the further extension of its benefits among 
the people of Pennsylvania, and that the broad- 
minded and liberal policy adopted by Thomas 
Penn one hundred and forty years ago has been 
continued down to the present time. In the 
language of General John F. Hartranft, himself a 
distinguished soldier, governor of the state, and 
president of the board of trustees, in an address at 
the inauguration of the hospital thus established, 
this policy is "in keeping with the generosity of 
the great state which gave this institution its cor- 
porate existence, and is to-day, and it is hoped 
always will be proud of her offspring, the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania." 

When the impartial historian comes to record 
the many events in which Pennsylvania has reason 



IN ITS RELATIONS TO THE STATE 455 

to take great pride, not the least of them will be 
the fact that in her first constitution, that of 1776, 
she made it a part of the fundamental law that 
" all useful learning shall be duly encouraged and 
promoted in one or more universities." 



INDEX 



Abolition, The first convention 
held in Philadelphia . . . .180 

Abolition Society 178 

Academy, The . . 4, 409, 4 1 2, 4 1 5 
416,438, 439, 440,441 
in the hands of Presbyteri- 
ans 417, 418 

chartered 440> 44 * 

Franklin claimed to have 

originated it 439 

See Pennsylvania, Uni- 
versity of. 
Academy of the Fine Arts . . .176 
Adams, Henry. His appreciation 

of Pennsylvania 282 

Adams, John . . 94, 113, 125, 174 
inaugurated president of the 
United States . . 108, 112 
Adams, John Quincy . 140, 166, 174 

Adams, Richard 247 

African slavery. See Slavery . 366 

Agincourt, Battle of 376 

Agnew, Dr. D. Hayes . . 169, 190 
Agonius, Brother — Michael Wohl- 

fahrt of the Ephrata cloister .351 
Albright, General Charles (officer 

in civil war) 204 

Alexander of Macedon . . . .145 

Alfred the Great 131 

Allebach, Christian 247 

Allegheny county. Pa 65 

Allegheny mountains 190 



Allegheny river 147 

Alleman's *<At Gettysburg" 

quoted 406 

Allen (Canada campaign) 8 

John 274 

Allentown, Pa., in the civil war .373 

Amazon river 409 

Amboy 12 

Amelia, Va 49 

American Philosophical Society, 

165, 176 

Ames, Fisher 179 

Ames, Nathaniel 181 

Anabaptists 198, 199 

Anderson, Ann Beaton . . . .283 
Anderson, Isaac, atWarren Tavern 260 

Anderson, James 281 

Anderson, Patrick . 267, 281, 283 
Andre, Major John, writes "The 

Cow Chase" .... 23 

hanged 210 

His journal . . 265, 266, 271 

Angleland 195 

Anhalt, Angelica, Princess of . .250 
Annapolis convention . . . .161 
Anonymous calumniator of Penn- 
sylvania 173,191 

Anti-slavery memorial . . 178, 179 

Antwerp 307 

Armstrong, General John . 14, 277 
Army of the Potomac . . 188, 374 
Arnold, General Benedict . . 6, 2io 



458 



INDEX 



Arnold, General Benedict, disliked 

by General Wayne .... 38 
Arnold, Godfried, church histo- 
rian 250 

Articles of confederation . . .161 
Ashbridge, Samuel H., mayor of 

Philadelphia 191 

Ashbridge, George 191 

Atlanta, Ga 366 

Atlantic Monthly publishes an an- 
onymous attack upon Pennsyl- 
vania 172, 173 

Atlee, William A., trustee of the 

University 448 

Audubon, John James . . . .169 

Augusta county, Va 182 

Aurora, The, edited by William 
Duane 116 

Baker, Sergeant, of Virginia . .221 
Baldwin, Matthias W., locomo- 
tive builder 190 

Balloon ascension 165 

Baltimore, Passage of troops 

through 188, 374 

Bank, The United States . . .114 
Baptist representation on the 
board of trustees of the Uni- 
versity 448 

Baptist Society, Dutch .... 242 

Barbados 178 

Barclay, Robert. Religious soci- 
eties of the commonwealth . 199 
Barclay, Robert, of Ury . . .43$ 

Barnes, Joseph 119, 120 

Barnwell, General 56 



Barton, W, C. P. *' Compen- 
dium Florae Philadelphics" .451 
"Battle of the Wooden Sword" 

— a satire 97,101 

Battles of Agincourt, Cannae, 
Gettysburg, and Waterloo . .376 

Bean's Tavern 275 

Beaton, Ann (Mrs. Patrick An- 
derson) 283 

Beaton, Colonel John . . . .283 
Beaver, General James A. . 204, 315 

Beaver county. Pa 284 

Bebber, Hermana Van . . . .234 

Isaac Van 236 

Jacob Isaacs Van . . . .229 

Matthias Van, 131, 228, 229 

230,233,234,237, 241, 249 

250, 2i;i, 253, 254, 255 

His proclamation . . .253 

Bebber's township . 230, 235, 236 

238, 242, 244, 246, 248, 253 

Becket, Thomas a 286 

Beer, Edward 231 

Beggars of the Sea 373 

Beissel, Conrad. Account of him 
in the Chronicon Ephratense 

328-331 
Called Vater Friedsam in 

Ephrata cloister . . . .349 

His letter to Saur . . 352—363 

His quarrel with Saur . 327—363 

Wrote most of the hymns 

in the Zionitischer Wey- 

rauch's H'ugel . . . .328 

Saur's letter to . . . 343-352 

Bell, Robert, printer 436 



INDEX 



459 



Bergey, Hans Ulrich .... 247 
Berkshire Hills, Massachusetts . 190 
Bethlehem, Pa., Moravian schools 

at 314 

Bibber 131 

Bible, The first English . . . .176 
The first English Testament i 76 
The first German . . 204, 3 1 1 
translated by Koster . . .311 
The first west of the Alle- 

ghenies 312 

Bibliography, The earliest Amer- 
ican 312 

Biddle, Craig 122 

Colonel Clement . . . .270 

Bigelow, Abijah 186 

Bigler, Governor William . . .314 

Bingaman, Lorentz 247 

Binney, Horace 125 

Bird, Dr. Robert, "Nick of the 

Woods" 169 

Birney, General David B. . 188, 375 

Bismarck, Count 285 

Bitts, William 246 

Blackstone, Sir William, First 
American edition of his Com- 
mentaries printed in Philadel- 
phia 176 

Blanchard (balloonist) . . . .165 
Blount, Senator William ... 96 

Boehm, Jacob 197 

Bohemia Manor . . . .233, 249 

Bon, Peter 243 

Bond, Phineas 439 

Thomas, trustee of the Uni- 
versity 448 



Boone, Daniel 131, 133 

Boone's Mill, Pa 248 

Boston falling in rank among the 

cities 175 

gives John Dickinson the 

"freedom of the city" .181 
has natural advantages . .175 

port bill 156 

tea party 182 

tea resolutions originated in 

Philadelphia 1 8 1 

Boudinot, Elias 125 

Bouligny, John Edward, of Lou- 
isiana 369—370 

Bouquet, Colonel Henry . . .316 
Bowser, William, of the Pennsyl- 
vania Line 41, 42 

Boyer, Benjamin 268 

Braam, Jacob Van , . . 149, 152 
Brackenridge, Hugh H. ... 67 
Braddock, General Edward . 70, i 53 

233» 316 
Bradford, Colonel Thomas , . 270 

William, "the patriot 

printer" i8l 

Bradfords, The, printers . . .436 
Brady, the Indian fighter , . .131 
Braght, Van, Marty er Spiegel of 3 i 2 
Brandy wine. The 365 

Battle of . . 15, 16, 135, 147 
158, 159, 213, 214, 259 

Branson's road 263 

Bregy, Francois Amedee . . .122 
Brewster, F. Carroll . 121, 123, 125 

Briar creek, Ga 53 

Briggs, Amos i 20 



460 



INDEX 



Bright, General Michael . 117, 118 
Brinton, Dr. Daniel G. ... 190 

Brissot de Warville 91 

British Guards at Monmouth . . 26 
British invasion. High water mark 

of the 257-279 

Brockden, Charles, defends the 

Academy 429 

Brodhead, Colonel Daniel, at 

Pittsburgh 27 

Brodhead' s " Location of the Na- 
tional Capital " 116 

Brooklyn bridge 205 

Brooke, General John R., of 

Pennsylvania 379 

Brown, David Paul 125 

General Jacob, a Pennsylva- 

nian 185 

Brumbach's church 263 

Brumbaugh, Dr. Martin G. . .237 

Brunswick 12 

Bryan, George, trustee of the 

University 448 

Bryn Mawr college 190 

Buckwalter, Polly 266 

Biidingische Sammlung . . . .233 
Bull Run, Battle of . . . 188, 374 

Bull Tavern 264, 265 

Bullinger, Heinrich . . . 200, 201 

Bun, Peter 247 

Bunker Hill, Battle of, not a vic- 
tory 183 

contrasted with Stony Point 

183, 213 
Burgoyne, Gen. John (British) 

7, 208, 210 



Burd, Colonel James 203 

Burnaby, Andrew. His opinion 
of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania 443 

Butler, General Benjamin F. . .190 

Col. Richard, at Monmouth 25 

at Stony Point . .215,217 

in Virginia .... 42, 46 

killed 63, 1 35 

on the Mohawk ... 27 

Buzzard, Frederick 266 

Byng, Mrs., a free quadroon . . 58 
Byrd, Mrs., of Westover ... 50 
Byron's "Don Juan" mentions 
Daniel Boone 130 

Cadwalader, Gen. George . 188, 375 

Gen. John 24, 25 

Caesar .... 10, 207, 286, 373 
Calhoun, John C, followed New 

England's teaching . .186 
His doctrines fell at Gettys- 
burg 381 

Callender, James, stenographer . 86 

Calvin, John 197 

Cameron, Simon . 188,375,388,389 

Campaign of 1777 258 

Canada, Attempt at a colony in . 5 

Cannae, Battle of 376 

Capitol at Harrisburg, Dedication 

of the 306-308 

Carey, Henry C, worked on the 

'* Pennsylvania Idea" . 189 
Mathew, wrought out the 
" Pennsylvania Idea" of a 
tariff i8q 



INDEX 



461 



Carlisle, Pa. 132, 164 

Carnaghan, Captain, at Gettys- 
burg 392 

Carpenter's Hall I 56 

Cashtown, near Gettysburg 

397, 400, 40Z 

Cassidy, Lewis C 125 

Catholic representation on the 
board of trustees of the Uni- 
versity 448 

Cavalry, Importance of, at the 
Battle of Gettysburg .... 404 

Caxton 195 

Celts, The German historian, 
Theodore Mommsen's opinion 

of the 278 

Chad's ford 15, 259 

Chambersburg 385. 398 

pike . 384, 385, 386, 391, 403 
Chancellorsville, Battle of . . . 47 
Charity school of the University 

oi Pennsylvania . 410—432 
437-441, 448, 449, 450 
an essential part of the Uni- 
versity 

411, 412, 418, 419, 420 
Authorities as to its being 
the origin of the Univer- 
sity quoted . . . 414, 415 
authorized by the Assembly 
of Pennsylvania . . .437 

chartered 44°, 441 

in the hands of Presbyte- 
rians 417 

Contest about its origin 426-430 
Charlemagne 131, 145 



Charleston evacuated by the Brit- 
ish 62 

Wayne at 78 

Courier 368 

Chaucer 1 96 

Cherokee Indians in the Revolu- 

"on 53 

Chesapeake bay in the Revolution 258 

Chester, Pa 14 

Chester county. Pa. . . . 280, 365 

Chester valley 233 

Chew House, Germantown . . 18 
Chickasaws in campaign against 
the western Indians .... 66 

Choctaw Indians 55 

in campaign against the 
western Indians .... 66 

Christ Church 165 

Yard, Philadelphia . . . .154 
Chronicles of Nathan Ben Saddi . 3 
Chronicon Ephratense, 328, 332, 333 
Chrystie, Captain James, of Penn- 
sylvania 219 

Churches represented on the board 

of trustees of the University . 448 

Cincinnati, Ohio . 66, 67, 69, 136 

laid out by John Filson . .132 

Cipriani 103 

City Hall, Philadelphia . . . .122 
City troop of Philadelphia ... 73 
Civil war. See War of the Rebel- 
lion. 

Clarendon, Earl of 286 

Clay, Henry, adopts the "Penn- 
sylvania Idea" of the Careys 
on the tariff question . . . .189 



462 



INDEX 



Clarke, Colonel 56 

Clarkson, Matthew 5 

Clemens, Garrett 247 

Clemens, Gerhard 252 

Clinton, Sir Henry 

38, 75, Z09, 210, 21 1 
attempts to bribe the Penn- 
sylvania Line 42 

Coates, Elizabeth 268 

Moses 

266, 268, 269, 270, 272 

Coats, John 429 

Cobbett, William .... 106, 107 

Cobham, Va 50 

Cold Harbor, Battle of ... . 224 

Colebrookdale, Pa 255 

College, The, (afterwards the 
University of Pennsylva- 
nia) . . 409, 416, 439, 449 

chartered 44 1> 444 

Franklin's account of, in his 

Autobiography , . 418, 419 
legislative inquiry . . 447-449 
charters declared void . . 448 
becomes the University . . 448 
in the hands of the Presby- 
terians 417 

''College of Mirania" .... 442 
Collier's, Com. Sir George (Brit- 
ish) opinion of "the rebels" 
at Stony Point .... 36, 224 

Cologne 195, 308 

Columbia, S. C 368 

river 201 

Common pleas. See Court of 
common pleas. 



Columbian Magazine 84 

Concord, Fight at 208 

Confederate States of America 366,367 

Congress Hall . . . . 81-126, 164 

Congress occupied it . . . 84 

described by Judge Mitchell 92 

Erection 83, 84 

Inauguration of Washington 

101-106 
Inauguration of Adams io8-i!2 

Location 82, 164 

used as court rooms . i 17— i 26 
Connecticut, The war in, 75, 2 10, 21 1 
opposed to the Louisiana 

Purchase 140 

sends delegates to Abolition 

convention 180 

declared by president to be 

in insurrection . . . .186 

troops at Stony Point . 215, 225 

Conscience, Freedom of . . . . zoi 

Continental congress . 156, 157, 25S 

money 44 

Contrecceur, Captain 150 

Conway, General Thomas . .278 
Cooke, jay, financed the civil war 189 
Cooper's ferry, Wayne at . . . 23 

Cope, Edgar F 169, 190 

Copper found in Pennsylvania . 250 

Corless, Michael 118 

Cornell at Savannah 57 

Corner Stores, Hamlet of 

265, 266, 272 

Cornplanter 66 

Cornwallis, General . 16, 46, 47, 48 
49. 5o> 5I' 77' '35 



I N D EX 



463 



Cornwallis in campaign of 1777 

264, 269, 272, 273, 277 
surrenders at Yorktown 52, 209 
Couch, General Darius N., 

U. S. A., at Gettysburg . 385, 388 
389. 390. 394> 395> 396, 397 
398, 399 
Counties named for Wayne and 

for Washington 136 

Court, District . 92, 117, 119, 120 
121, 125 

Judges of the 119 

Court of Quarter Sessions 

119, 121, 122 
Oyer and Terminer 

119, 121, 122 

U. S. Circuit . . . i 17, 1 19 
U. S. Supreme, met at Fifth 

and Chestnut . . . .164 
Supreme, o{ Pennsylvania 

117, 121 
of Common Pleas 

1 17, 1 19, 120, I 21 
of Common Pleas, No. 2 

81, 121, 124, 125 
of Common Pleas, No. i .122 
Coventry Forge, Pa. . .255, 260 
"Cow Chase" written by Major 

Andre 23 

Coxe, Hon. Charles Sidney . 93, 120 

Tench 314 

Craig's Pennsylvania regiment at 

Monmouth 25 

Craik, Dr. James, of Alexandria .112 
Cramp, Edwin S., ship builder 

190, 315 



Crawford, Gen. Samuel Wylie 

188, 375 
Col. William, burned by 

the Indians 63 

Creek Indians in the Revolution 

53. 55 

Crefeld, Germany 227 

Cromwell, Oliver 286 

Culp, Rufus E., at Gettysburg . 392 
Cumberland valley and the battle 

of Gettysburg 403 

Cunard, Samuel 205 

line of ocean steamers . . 205 
Currie, Rev. William .... 3 
Curtin, Andrew G., governor of 

Pennsylvania, Proclamation of 

June 15, 1863 .... 387, 389 
Cushing, William, Justice of the 

U. S. Supreme Court . . .101 

Custer, Conrad 247 

General George A. . 203, 332 
See also Kuster 
Custis, Martha (Mrs. Washing- 

ington) 154 

Custis, Nellie 113 

Cuyler, Theodore 125 

Cyrus 13 I, 168 

Dahlgren, General Ulrich , . . 204 

Dailey, Thomas H., at Gettys- 
burg 392 

Dana, Maj. Gen. N. J. T., at 
Gettysburg 398, 399 

Dandridge (nephew of Mrs. 
Washington) 113 

Darwin, Charles 145 



464 



INDEX 



Davies, Samuel 157 

Davis, Jefferson 389 

followed New England's 

teaching 186 

His doctrines died at Get- 
tysburg 381 

Richard Harding 234 

Dawson's "Assault upon Stony 

Point" 208 

Dayton, Jonathan 87, 88 

Dean Furnace 210 

Declaration of independence . .258 
"De Colonic en Kerke van Pen- 

sylvanien" 233 

Decoration Day 383 

Dedication of the State Capitol 
of Pennsylvania .... 306-308 

Deesmont, Daniel 243 

See Desmond, Daniel 
DeHaven. See Hoffen, In de 

Dehaven, Peter 267 

Delaney, Sharp. His opinion of 

Wayne 35 

Delaware Indians .... 248, 281 
Their rights defended by 

M. S. Quay 282 

Delaware river . . . 166, 175, 310 

Forts on the 21 

Blockade of the 23 

The war around the . . .158 

Hendrickson sails up the .310 

Plockhoy describes the . .310 

Delaware troops at Stony Point, 215,225 

Delaware, State of . . . 163, 233 

represented in the Annapolis 

convention 162 



Delaware, State of, adopts the 

federal constitution . . .163 
sends delegates to Abolition 

convention 180 

Desmond, Daniel . . . . 232, 252 

Detroit 73, 74 

Detweiler, Hans 246 

Dewees, Cornelius 232 

William 232 

Col. William 232 

His mill 267 

Dickens, Charles 196 

Dickinson, John, The "Farm- 
er's Letters" . . 1 56, 181 
given "the freedom of the 
city" by Boston . . . l8i 

His portrait 181 

Gen 95 

Dickson, Samuel .... 408, 414 
Diehl, J. W., at Gettysburg . . 392 
Dillsburg, York county. Pa. 283, 394 
Dinwiddle, Gov. Robert, of Vir- 
ginia 148, I 52 

Dismant. See Desmond. 

Disraeli, Benjamin 286 

Doag run 155 

Dock, Christoph or Christopher, 

schoolmaster . 237, 243, 312 
His Schul Ordnung . . .312 
His Hundert Sitten Regeln .312 
Donnel, George, at Gettysburg , 392 
Joseph, at Gettysburg . .392 
William G., at Gettysburg . 392 
Doubleday, Gen. Abner, at Get- 
tysburg 392 

Donlop, Sergt., of Pennsylvania .221 



I N D EX 



465 



Douglass, Lt. Col. (British) . . 57 
Drake's "Gettysburg" quoted . 405 
Duane, William, stenographer . 86 

editor of Aurora . . . .116 
Dubois, Isaac 243, 246 

Solomon 232, 252 

Dunkers . . . 132, 322, 327-363 

oppose Dr. William Smith . 444 

Durr, John Conrad 320 

Dutch Baptist Society . . . .242 

war with Spain 373 

Dutchman, the Pennsylvania 

309-318 
Dutchmen, achievements of, in 

America 309—318 

Dutch Patroons of Pennsylvania 

226-256 

Early, Gen. Jubal A., C.S.A., 
at Gettysburg . . 384, 385, 391 
395, 400, 402, 404, 405 
East Tennessee in the civil war . 370 

Easttown 3 

Wayne's family at . . 10, 30 

Wayne born in 2 

Echard, Mrs. Susan R. ...112 
Eckcrlin, Samuel, Brother Jephune 

of the Ephrata cloister . 345, 350 
Eggelston, Edward, historian . 237 
Elk river, Howe at the . . . .258 
Eliot, George (Mrs. Lewes) . 283 
Emergency Infantry, 26th Penn- 
sylvania 384—407 

Ellsworth, Oliver, chief justice of 

the United States 108 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo . 162, 167 



Engers, Jacob 247 

England at war with France, 146—154 
Entomology, Earliest American 

book on 314 

Ephrata Chroriicle 328 

Community 322 

founded by Conrad Beissel 327 
martyr book .... 205, 312 
Press , . . . 205, 328, 436 
Press, " Turtel Taube " 
printed at the . . . .312 
Episcopalian representatives on 
board of trustees of the Uni- 
versity 448 

Erasmus 232 

Erie, City of 74 

Erskine, Col. Sir Wm. (British) 277 
Etiquette, Earliest American treat- 
ise on 312 

Etting, Frank M. History of 

Independence Hall .... 81 
Evans, John, a trustee of the 

University 448 

Ewell, Gen. Richard S.,C.S.A., 
at Gettysburg .... 385, 386 

Fabricius, Dr. John . . . 320, 321 

Fairfax, Col 155 

Fairfield, Conn., in Revolution- 
ary war 211 

Falkner's swamp, Montgomery 

county, Pa 246 

Fallen Timbers, Battle of the 

7l> 127. 137 

Park at 79 

Falls of Schuylkill 15 



466 



INDEX 



Farmer. * 'Letters from a Farmer 
in Pennsylvania to the Inhab- 
itants of the British Colonies." 
See John Dickinson. 

Fatland ford on the Schuylkill . 264 

265, 271, 272, 273, 277 

Fayette county. Pa. 65 

Febiger, Col. Christian . . 215, 217 
Federal government occupies 

Congress Hall 84 

Fell, David Newlin 121 

Few, William, at Gettysburg . . 392 

Filson, John 132 

club of Louisville . . . .132 

Findlay, John King i 20 

First troop, Philadelphia city 

cavalry 73 

Fishbourne, Maj 76 

Fisher, Miers 91 

Flatfeet Indians 248 

Fleury, Lieut. Louis de, at Stony 

Point 220, 221 

Forbes, Gen. John 154 

Force bill 194 

Fort Defiance, on the Maumee 70, i 37 

Fort Duquesne . . . 148, 150, 151 

Fort Erie 68 

Fort Fisher 204 

Fort Mifflm 21 

Fort Necessity 151 

Fort on the Ohio 136 

Fort Recovery . . 69, 70, 136, 137 

"Fort Rittenhouse" 118 

Fort Steadman 375 

Fort Sumter, fired upon . . . .372 
Fort Washington. Seeff^ashington 



Fort Washington, near Harrisburg 394 

Fossen, Arnold van 243 

Johannes van 243 

Fountain Inn 268 

"Four Treatises" by Francis 

Daniel Pastorius 310 

Fox, George 197, 199 

France at war with England . 146-154 
helps America in the Revo- 
lution 184 

in America 146-154 

sells Louisiana 138 

Francis, Tench 439 

Franckenland in America . . . 228 
Frankford Land Company . . .320 
Franklin, Benjamin 5, 165, 436, 443 

in France 37 

his proposals relating to the 

education of youth . . . 439 

a trustee of the University . 448 

his account of the college in 

his Autobiography . 418, 419 

Gen. William B. . . . 188, 375 

Frederick the Great of Prussia . 159 

Fredericksburg, Md. . . . 97, 224 

French at Yorktown 50 

defeat the English at Pitts- 
burgh 153 

evacuate Fort Duquesne . .154 
creek. Pa. 

257, 263, 264, 275, 277 
fleet at Yorktown . . . 49, 52 

revolution 145 

Col., C. S. A., at Gettys- 
burg . . . . 401, 402, 405 
Fresenius Nachrichten . . . .233 



I N D EX 



467 



Frick, Col. J.G., at Gettysburg . 393 

Frid, Paulus 243 

Fried, Johannes , .234, 240, 247 

Paul 232, 237 

Paul, Jr 247 

Friedt, Johannes .... 243, 252 

Paul 243 

Friends, 200 persecuted in Mas- 
sachusetts .... 174, 175 
of Pennsylvania spread anti- 
slavery ideas all over the 

country 180 

owe their rise to the Ana- 
baptists 199 

control of colonial Pennsyl- 
vania 202 

doctrines defended . . . .435 
antagonize Dr.Wm. Smith . 444 
Society of. Opposed to sla- 
very 178 

Frontier forts held by the British . 133 

Fry, Benjamin 246 

Furly, Benjamin, Penn's agent . 228 

Furness, Dr. H. H 190 

Fussell, William 268 

Gales, , stenographer ... 86 

Gain, Thomas 178 

Gallatin, Albert 184, 286 

Gait, John. Description of Lan- 
caster 311 

Galway, Lord 26 

Garber, Johannes , 247 

Garnett, Col. Richard B., C. S. 

A., at Gettysburg 405 

Garrison, Wm. Lloyd . . . .180 



Gass, Jacob 334 

Geary, Gen. John W 375 

Gedachtniss Tag, or Memorial 
Day of the Schwenkfelders . .311 

Geistliche Fama 233 

Geistliches Magazien . . . .312 
Genet, Edmund Charles . . .165 

George III 285 

Georgia in the Revolution . 53,78,136 
Gerard, the chevalier, his opinion 

of Wayne 35 

German Calvinist representation 
on board of trustees of the Uni- 
versity 448 

German force 145 

immigration .... 195-207 

beginning of 200 

language, etc., suppressed in 

Pennsylvania schools . .202 
newspapers in America . .316 
Reformed church . , . .240 
schools and churches in 

Pennsylvania 415 

Germans help Quakers to control 

colonial Pennsylvania . . 202 

in important public positions 203 

Germantown , . , 228, 230, 249 

Battle of . . 18, 78, 135, 147 

158, 159, 209, 213, 214 

bicentennial 195 

first Bible printed in , . . 204 
first paper mill in . . . .204 
first settlers of . . . 202, 228 
information in Zeltners' Fitce 
Theologorum Altorphi?i- 
orum 320 



468 



INDEX 



Germantown inhabitants early in 
support of the federal 

constitution 316 

Pennypacker's Settlement of 319 
protest against slavery 

178, 203, 3 10 
Plockhoy dies in ....310 

Settlement of 199 

Saur's printing press in . .327 

Washington at 259 

Gerry, Elbridge 163 

Gettysburg, Battle of . 152, 189,192 

224' 376, 377> 38«-407 
Effect on history . . . .378 
The 26th Pennsylvania 
Emergency Infantry at 
the battle of . . . 384-407 
Why selected as a battle 

ground 405 

National park at . . 257, 384 
Gibbon, Gen. John . . . 188, 375 
Gibbons, Lt. James, of Pennsyl- 
vania, at Stony Point 

34, 184, 218, 222 
Gibson, John Bannister . . . .169 

Giles, of Virginia 96 

Gill, Capt 56 

Girard, Stephen, financed the 

war of 181 2 189 

Girty, Simon 68, 132 

Gitt, A. F. , at Gettysburg . . 392 
Gladstone, William Ewart . . .286 

Gloucester, N. J 166 

Gnadenhutten, Ohio 132 

Gobel, Richard 243 

Goeb, Frederick, of Somerset, Pa. 312 



Gordon, Brig. Gen. John B., C. 
S. A., at Gettysburg 

400, 401, 403, 405 
His " Reminiscences of 
the Civil War" quoted 406 

Patrick 270 

Patrick, governor of Penn- 
sylvania 243 

Gordon's cave 275 

ford over the Schuylkill 

270, 271, 272, 274 

Gorhtz 197 

GraefF. See Op den Graeff. 

Graeme, Elizabeth 14 

Thomas 202 

Grand Army of the Republic, 
Colonel Frederick Taylor Post 

of the 364 

Grant, Gen. James (British) 12, 275 

Gen. Ulysses S 189 

Grasse, Comte de 50 

Grater, Jacob 247 

Gray, Thomas, the English poet , 365 
Sergeant, of the 37th Vir- 
ginia Regiment, C. S. A, 368 

Gray don, Alexander 13 

Great Meadows, near Union- 
town, Pa 149 

Greeks, Force that made the . .145 

Greencastle, Pa 398, 399 

Greene, Gen. Nathaniel . 2, 16, 24 

48, 53> 54. 55. 56, 57. 58 
59, 62, 78 
His opinion of Gen. Wayne 

35, 43, 62, 209, 223 
Green Spring, Va 46 



INDEX 



469 



Greenville, Wayne's camp near 

Cincinnati 69 

Greenwood, near Gettysburg . 384 
Gregg, Gen. David McM., at 

Gettysburg 376 

Grey, Gen. Earl, at Paoli . 17, 264 

Headquarters of 265 

Grimes, William 265 

Griswold, Roger . . . 96, 97, 139 
satirized in "Battle of the 
Wooden Sword" . 97—101 

GrofF, Martin 329 

Gross, Dr. Samuel D., 

169, 190, 205, 315 
Grout, Jonathan 179 

H St, Nicholas 243 

Haddonfield, Wayne at ... . 23 
Hagerstown, Md., in the war of 

the Rebellion 385 

Haldeman, John 247 

Nicholas 247 

Hall of Conn 220 

Halleck, Gen. Henry W., U. S. 

A 395. 396, 398, 399 

Haller, Major Granville O., U. 

S. A., at Gettysburg . . 385, 393 

Hallowell, John 120 

Halman, Anthony 246 

Hamilton, Alexander . . . 95, 286 

Andrew .... 82, 83, 248 

James 83 

Hancock, Gen. Winfield S.,U.S. 

A 188, 190, 375 

at Gettysburg 376 

Hanover, Pa 254, 314 



Harcourt, Col. William, Earl . 277 
Hare, John Innes Clark 

120, 121, 125, 190 

Harleysville, Pa. 254 

Harmar, William 229 

Harmer, Col. Josiah . . 29, 63, 69 

115, 134, 164 

Harrisburg . 388,391,395,403,405 

Harrison, Benjamin . . . 113, 194 

Mrs. Benjamin . . . 112, 113 

Charles C. .... 408, 425 

Hartford convention 185 

Hartranft, Gen. John F. 

204, 314, 375, 454 
Harvard University's claim to 

antiquity 430, 431 

Hawaii 382 

Hay, , of Pennsylvania, at 

Stony Point 220 

Hayne, Robert Y., Webster's 

reply to 377 

Hays, Brig. Gen. Henry T., C. 
S. A., at Gettysburg 

400, 401, 402, 405 

Hayti i6i 

Hartley, Col. , at Sunbury . 27 

Heath, Gen. William . . . .210 
Heckewelder, John, missionary 

205, 316 

Heckler, James Y 252 

Heffelfinger, Ulrich 247 

Heijt, Hans Joest . .132, 147, 248 

Heilman, Antonius 240 

Heintzelman, Gen. Samuel P. 

188, 204, 375 
Hemphill, Joseph 119 



470 



INDEX 



Hendricks, Gerhard, protests 

against slavery 910 

Hendrickson, Capt. Cornelis, sails 

up the Delaware river . . .310 
Hengist, Horsa and Cerdic . .129 

Henry, Patrick 163 

Hermits of the Wissahickon 319—326 
Recovery of the Hymn-book 

of the 322 

Hesse, Anna Maria, Countess of 250 
Hessians . 265, 266, 268, 271, 277 

Heth, Capt. 67 

Hewitt, Luther E 81 

Hicks, Nicholas 247 

Hiester, Gov. Joseph , . , .314 
Highlands of the Hudson, Stony 

Point the gateway of the . . 30 
High Water Mark of the British 
Invasion of America . . 257—279 

Hill, Richard 227 

Hillegas, Michael, first conti- 
nental treasurer 312 

Hilltown, near Gettysburg . . 400 

Historical Magazine 84 

Historical Society of Pennsylva- 
nia. See Pennsylvania 
HofFen, Edward In de . . . . 247 
Gerhard In de .231, 247, 252 
Herman In de . . . 231, 252 
Hofmann, Col. J. William, of the 
56th Pennsylvania regiment, 
at Gettysburg .... 204, 376 
Hoke, Brig. Gen. Robert F., 
C. S. A., at Gettysburg . .400 

Holliday, Josiah 9 

Hopkinson's Works 417 



Hooker, Gen. Joseph, at Chan- 

cellorsville 47 

Hopkinson, Francis 416 

Thomas 439 

Hortensius's **Histoire des Ana- 

baptistes " 199 

** House of Wisdom in a Bustle," 

a satire on congress . 88, 89, 96 

Howe, Sir William . i, 12, 13, 15 

147, 258, 264, 265, 269 

272, 275, 278 

at Germantown 19 

at Chad's ford 258 

in Philadelphia (Sixth and 

Chestnut) . . . . 23, 164 
Hubley, Col. Bernard . . . .135 

Hudson river 209, 210 

Military importance of 209, 210 

Hughes, John 5 

Hughes, Capt. (British) ... 58 

"Hugh Wynne" 14 

Huling, Marcus 248 

Humphreys, Gen. Andrew A. 

188, 190, 375 

at Gettysburg 376 

Humpton, Col. Richard ... 75 
Hutchinson, James, trustee of 

the University 448 

Hymn, ** Weil die Wolcken — 
Seul aufbricht," caused 
the quarrel between Con- 
rad Beissel and Christo- 
pher Saur 330 

The German text and Gov. 
Penny packer's English 
translation .... 337-342 



INDEX 



471 



Hymn by lohann Gottfried Seelig 

324-326 
Hymn-book of the Hermits of the 

Wissahickon 31 9-3 26 

Its recovery 322 

Kelpius's contributions . .322 
Koster's contributions . , .322 
Seelig' s contributions . . "3 23 
Its present location and own- 
ership 323 

Translation of one of the 

hymns 324—326 

Hymn-book, The " Zionitischer 
Weyrauch's Hiigel" . . 328—363 
Saur speaks oi his work on it 343 

Hunsicker, Valentin 243 

Hunter, Gen. , (British) . 19 

Hunterstown road, near Gettys- 
burg . . . 391, 393, 402, 405 

Illinois, State of 72 

Ills of Pennsylvania 172 

Immigration, German , . 195—207 
Immigrants, Dutch and German . 228 
In de HofFen. See Hoffen 
Independence Hall . . . , 82, 156 
Etting's History of ... 81 

Indiana, State of 73 

Indians, Cherokee and Creek, in 

the Revolution . 53, 55, 61 

Choctaw 55 

Delaware 248 

Flatfeet 248 

Moravian 132 

Shawanese 248 

Indian school at Carlisle . . .132 



Indians of the west . 63-73, 134,135 
Wayne's campaign against 

the . 63-73, 134-138, 214 
in the western campaign 

friendly 66 

in eastern Pennsylvania in 
1728, trouble with the 

243-249 
at Fort Necessity . . . .151 
and their relations to Penn- 
sylvania 316 

Infantry, 26th Pennsylvania 

Emergency 384—407 

Ingersoll, Jared 119 

Irvine, Col., in Canada .... 7 
Irvine's Pennsylvania regiment at 

Monmouth 25 

Jabez, Brother. Peter Miller, 
prior of the Ephrata cloister 

335» 344 
Jackson, Andrew 382 

Jacob, Richard 243, 247 

Jacobs, Benjamin, member of the 

committee of safety . 5, 231 

Elizabeth, sister of John, 
Israel, Joseph and Ben- 
jamin 231 

Hannah (Mrs. David Rit- 
tenhouse), sister of Eliz- 
abeth 231 

Israel, M. C. from Penn- 
sylvania 5> 231 

John, immigrant 231, 243, 246 

John, speaker of the Penn- 
sylvania assembly . . ,231 

J. Howard, at Gettysburg . 393 



472 



I N D EX 



Jacobs, Joseph, great grandson of 

John 231 

James island, Va 50 

river, Va 46, 50, 78 

Jansen,Clau3 . 231,235,239,247,252 

Klas 243 

Peter 243 

Jay, John. His opinion of Wayne 

35. 223 
Jay's treaty .... 107, i 15, 165 
Jefferson, Thomas . .93, 104, 125 
Vice president of the U. S. 

108, 109, 1 10, III, 112 
and the Louisiana purchase 

140, 141 
His opinion of David Rit- 

tenhouse 312 

College 284 

Jenkins, Judge Theodore Finley . 121 
Gen. Albert G., C. S. A., 

at Gettysburg 403 

Jennings, Col.W.W. , at Gettys- 
burg 390, 391, 404 

His official report quoted . 406 
Jephune, Brother. Samuel Eck- 
erlin, of the Ephrata cloister 

345. 350 
Johnson, Col. Henry, British 
Commander at Stony 
Point . 34,208,213,221,222 

John 247 

Peter • . . 247 

Jones, Dr 28 

Gen. William E., C. S. A., 

at Gettysburg . . 384, 400 
Joel 120 



Jordan, John W 81 

Journal of Law, The 414 

Jumonville, N. Coulon de . 150, 152 

Kalb, Baron Johann de , . 259—260 
Kassel, Huppert or Hupert 243, 246 

Keble, John 414 

Keimer, Samuel, printer . . , 436 
Keiter, John, of Skippack . , .275 

Keith, George 435 

Kelpius 321 

Manuscript in handwriting of 3 1 9 
His *' Scylla Theologica " 

320, 321 
His contributions to the 
H y mnbook of the Hermits 
of theWissahickon . 322, 323 
Kensington, Philadelphia . . .190 

Kentucky 114, 133 

placed Daniel Boone's statue 

in the Capitol . . , .131 
Filson's History of ... 132 

riflemen 224 

troops in western campaign 70 
Key, The, early magazine ... 97 

Keystone state 143 

Kimberton road 263 

Kingsessing 203 

King's ferry, on the Hudson . .210 
Kittanning, Indian battle at . . 14 

Klein, John Isaac 246 

Kleinfelter, Capt. F., at Gettys- 
burg 392 

Knox, Gen. Henry, secretary of 
war . 65, 68, 69, 78, 105, 136 



INDEX 



AlZ 



Knox, Lieut. , of Pennsyl- 
vania 218, 220, 221 

Knyphausen, Gen. Wilhelm von 
(Hessian) . . . .15, 265, 266 

Kolb, Dielman 246 

Henry . 235, 239, 243, 247 

Jacob . . 232, 235, 239, 241 

243, 247, 255 

Johannes 232, 252 

Martin . . . .232, 235, 239 
243, 246 
Koplin's, Matthias, gift to the 

Pennsylvania Hospital . . .313 
Koster, Henry Bernhard . . .311 
His contributions to the 
Hymn-book of the Her- 
mits of the Wissahickon 

322, 323 
Kratz, Johann Valentine . . . 247 

Krause, Michael 247 

Krey, Jan or John . . . . 231, 252 

Kriebel, 321 

Kriegsheim, Germany . . . .228 

Kroll, Christian • .247 

Kunders, Thones, of German- 
town 201, 205 

Kuster, Hermannus . . . 232, 235 
239, 243, 247 

Kuster, Johannes 231 

Paul 203 

Peter 232 

Peter, of Saardam .... 204 

Lafayette . 24, 43, 46, 47, 50, 78 
His opinion of Wayne . . 36 
commends Wayne .... 48 



Lafayette commends the Pennsyl- 
vania Line 48 

Lake Erie 149 

Lancaster, Pa., John Gait's de- 
scription of 311 

Printing in 314 

Lancaster county. Pa., the richest 

agricultural county in the U. S. 314 
Lane, Edward . . . 229, 267, 273 

William 246 

Langfeldt, Charles, Trial of . .122 
Law Association of Philadelphia . 122 
Lea, Henry Charles . . . 1 69, 1 90 

Lee, Gen. Charles 74 

at Monmouth . . . 24, 25, 47 
His opinion of Wayne . 36, 223 
Lee, Gen. Fitz Hugh, C.S.A. . 379 
Lee, Col. Henry (Light Horse 

Harry), praises Wayne . 48 
praises the Pennsylvania Line 48 

at Stony Point 215 

Lee, Gen. Robert E,, at Gettys- 
burg . 378, 385, 389, 395, 396 

397, 399, 403, 404, 405 

Lee Papers 271 

"Legislative Pugilists," The — a 

satire on Congress 96 

Le Glaize river 70 

Lehigh University 190 

Leidy, Dr. Joseph, 169,190,205,315 

Leisher, Johannes 247 

Lenberger, Joseph L., at Gettys- 
burg 393 

Lensen, Jan, of Germantown . 201 
Lessig, George B., at Gettysburg .392 

Levy, Moses 119 



474 



INDEX 



Lewis, Mrs. Lawrence (Nellie 

Custis) 113 

Lewistown, Pp. , in the civil war . 373 
Lexington, Battle of. 156, 208, 373 
Llieraior, edited by William Lloyd 

Garrison 180 

Liberty Bell, Sacrilege to remove . i 56 

Lick, James, of California . . .315 

came from Lebanon, Pa. .315 

Lick telescope 315 

Lincoln, Abraham . . 131, 193,383 
The first troops to relieve 

Wm 3i3> 374 

Prophecy concerning . 364—365 
Thanks Pennsylvania . . .374 
Proclamation of June, I 863 .387 

Lincoln, B 68 

John, great grandfather of 
Abraham Lincoln . . .131 

Mordecai 248 

Linen made in Pennsylvania . .316 

Livingston, Robert R 141 

Lloyd, David, jurist . . . 435, 437 
Thomas, stenographer . . .86 
His report of the debates 
on the federal consti- 
tution 317 

Loganian Library 176 

Logan, Benjamin 131 

James . 176,202,227,434,438 
Long Island, Battle of . 8, 158, 213 
Long ford, on the Schuylkill . .271 
*<Looking-glass for Presbyteri- 
ans" 417 

Louisiana, The Purchase of 

127-143, 260 



Louisiana. Objections to the 

purchase . . 138, 139, 140 
John Edward Bouligny faith- 
ful to the union . . 369-370 
Lowell, James Russell . . . .131 
Lucken, Jan, of Germantown . 201 

Lukens vs. the City 122 

Luther, Martin . .145, 196, 197 

Lutheran Church 240 

Lutheran representation on the 
board of trustees of the Uni- 
versity 448 

Lutheran Seminary of Gettysburg, 
Students at the battle of Get- 
tysburg 389 

Lynch, Becky 266 

Lynd, James 120 

Lyon, Matthew . . 96, 97, 98, 99 

100, loi 
Satirized in *' Battle of the 
Wooden Sword . . 97—101 

Maak's Mill, Penna 248 

McAllister, John 93 

McCall, Peter 125 

McClellan, Gen. George B. 

188, 374, 375 
McClure, Alexander K. ... 373 
McCormick, Lt. Edward P., at 

Gettysburg 392 

Macdonald, Charles, at Gettys- 
burg 393 

McDougall, Gen 210 

McKean, Joseph Borden 119,120,125 
McKean, Thomas, and the Lou- 
isiana Purchase 1 41 



I N D EX 



475 



McKee, , British Indian 

agent 72 

McKinley, William . . . 189, 194 

McKinley tariff bill 194 

McKoy, John 109 

McLane, Allen, at Stony Point 

21 5, 219 
Maclay, William , . . 95, 96, 142 
McMaster, John Bach . . 169, 190 
on the origin of the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania . 426 
Madison, James . . . . 105, 141 

Manatawny 248, 250 

Manatawny road 275 

Manila Bay, Battle of . . . .382 
Mann, William B. . . . 122, 125 

Marieke, Jacob 247 

Marlborough 159 

Marshall, John . .115, 125, 378 
originated the expression 
" First in war, first in 
peace, and first in the 
hearts of his countrymen' ' 115 
Marsh creek,near Gettysburg 386, 391 
Martin, John Hill. "Bench and 
Bar of Philadelphia" . ... 81 

Maryland 162, 233 

sends delegates to Abolition 

convention 180 

troops at Monmouth ... 25 
at Stony Point . . 215, 225 
in western campaign . . 65 

Mason's Hill 266 

Massachusetts 163 

opposed to the Louisiana 
Purchase 140 



Massachusetts. The Revolution- 
ary war in 158 

Pennsylvania and . . 172—194 
steadily falling in rank among 

the states 175 

A large number of its people 
anxious to live in Penn- 
sylvania 176 

late to adopt Pennsylvania's 
ideas of religious free- 
dom 177 

sold negroes, Indians and 
Quakers as slaves in Bar- 
bados 178 

among the last of the states 

to oppose slavery . . .180 
hostile to the war of I 8 1 2 . 185 
declared by the president to 

be in insurrection . . .186 
Regiment, Sixth, in Balti- 
more 374 

law called Quakers a cursed 

sect of heretics . . 174, 175 
troops at Stony Point . 215, 225 

Sixth Regiment 188 

Mather, Cotton, hanged witches 174 
Matlack, Timothy, trustee of the 

University 448 

Maumee river I37 

Maxwell, Miss 58 

Maxwell, Col. William, of New 

Jersey 7 

Meade, Gen. George Gordon . i 70 
188, 189, 193, 375, 378 

383. 395. 396, 397, 398 
399, 403, 405 



476 



I N D EX 



Medical School. The earliest 
one was established in Phila- 
delphia 176 

Meigs, Return Jonathan . . .215 
rebuked by Wayne ... 37 
Meissenhelder, Dr. E. W. , .390 
Melsheimer, Frederick V., ento- 
mologist 314 

Menno Simons . . . 197, I99j 201 
Mennonites . 201,237,238,239,242 
opposed to Dr. Wm. Smith . 444 
Mennonite meeting house on the 

Skippack . . . , . .232, 252 
Menonists. See Mennofiites. 
Menisten. See Mennonites. 

Merckle, George 243 

Merckley, Jacob 243 

Meredith, William M. . . 125, 414 

Merrick, Samuel V 408 

Meyer, George 247 

Miami river . . . 69, 70, 71, 136 

Middlebrook 12 

Mifflin, Fort 21 

Mifflin, Thomas (general and 

governor) 165 

Military Order of the Loyal 
Legion quoted ...... 407 

Miller, Lt. Henry, of Penna., at 

Cambridge with Washington .313 
Miller, Peter (Brother Jabez of the 

Ephrata cloister) . 335, 344 
Millionaires' Club, The U. S. 

Senate 191 

Milton, John. First Amer. ed. 

printed in Philadelphia . . .176 
Mint, The U. S. established . .214 



" Mirania, College of" . . .442 
Mississippi river . . . 72, 138, 147 
Mitchell, Hon. James T. . 120, 121 
Address upon the District 
Court . . . .81, 92, 1 1 7 
Mitchell, Dr. S. Weir. His 

"Hugh Wynne" . 14, 169 

writes novels 1 90 

Mommsen, Theodor (German 

historian). His opinion of Celts 278 
Monckton, Col. Henry (British), 

killed at Monmouth .... 26 
Monmouth, Battle of. . 24, 25, 26 

47> 78, 135. 158, 214 

Monongahela river 147 

Monroe, James 141 

Mont Clare village . . . 270, 274 
Montgomery, Gen. Richard . . 6 
Montgomery county. Pa. . 227, 245 
Montresor, Col. John (British) 

271, 275, 276 
Moore, James K., at Gettysburg 392 
Moore, William, of Moore Hall 

3, 5, 280, 444, 445 
threatens the assembly of 

Pennsylvania 445 

punished by the assembly 

446, 447 

Moore Hall . . 265, 270, 271, 277 

280, 444 

Moravian Indians 132 

missionaries 205 

schools. A writer's opinion 

of the 314 

Moravians 43 5> 444 

Morgan, Benjamin Rawle . . ,120 



INDEX 



477 



Morgan, Gen. Daniel .... 21 
Dr. John 45 I 

Morris, Anthony 437 

Israel 246 

Robert 27, 84, 125 

financed the Revolution . 189 
Samuel, trustee of the Uni- 
versity 448 

Morristown, N. J ii> 38 

Moses, Washington likened to . 157 
compared with the builders 
of the State Capitol . .308 

Mount Vernon 152, 154 

Moyer's Mill, Pa 248 

Muddy Hole 155 

Muhlenberg, Frederick Augustus 

87, 88, 203, 313, 448 
Henry Melchior . . 227, 255 
Gen. Peter . . 203, 317—318 
Mummasburg, near Gettysburg 

400, 401, 402, 403 

Murfree, Maj 217, 221 

Music, Earliest American essay on 312 
** My Dovelet, where art thou ?" 
Translation of a German hymn 
composed by Johann Gottfried 

Seelig 324-326 

Myer, John 247 

Naglee, Gen. Henry M . 188, 375 

Napoleon . . 159, 167, 285, 286 

and the Louisiana Purchase . 141 

at Lodi 145 

Nation, The, made by the war 
of the Rebellion and not by 

the adoption of the constitution 377 



Nazareth, Pa., Moravian schools 

^^ 3H 

Netherlands 197 

Neuswanger, Christian .... 247 

Newberry, John 231 

New Coshahopin, Montgomery 

county. Pa 246 

New England in the west . . .134 
opposes the Louisiana Pur- 
chase 139, 140 

had no part in the movement 
leading to the adoption of 
the constitution of the 
United States . . . .162 
opposed to the war of 1 8 1 2 . 185 
makes threats of secession . 186 
congressmen contend for 
England's " right of 

search" 186 

New Hampshire voted against 
the Louisiana Purchase . . . 140 

New Hanover, Pa 248 

New Jersey 163 

adopts the federal constitu- 
tion 163 

represented in the Annapolis 

convention 162 

sends delegates to Abolition 

convention 180 

troops in Canada .... 7 
troops in western campaign . 65 
Newspapers in Pennsylvania . .316 
New Orleans . 140, 141, 147, 224 
"New Pastoral," by T. Buch- 
anan Read 365 

New Testament in German . 311,312 



478 



INDEX 



New York 1 64 

dissatisfied with selection of 

capitol 84 

represented in the Annapolis 

convention 162 

sends delegates to Abolition 

convention 180 

the second state to arm its 

troops in the civil war 

187, 373 
held by the British . . 26, 27 

Niagara 73 

The army of, in the war of 

1812 185 

Nicholson, , paymaster . . 45 

Nicholas, Rev. Jacoby ... .250 

Norris, Isaac 227 

Norristown 274 

North Carolina 133 

troops at Stony Point . 215, 225 

Northumberland, Pa 315 

North, Generosity of the, after 

the civil war 371 

Northwest territory 134 

Nor walk. Conn., in the Revolu- 
tion 211 

Nuremburg 320 

Nutt's road, near Phoenixville 

261, 265, 266 

Ogeechee river, Ga 54' 55 

Ohio Company 64, 134 

Ohio river 64,67,72,133,147,154 

Ohio, State of 72, 78 

Ohio troops in the western cam- 
paign 65 



Onesimus, prior of the Ephrata 

cloister 330 

Op de GraefF, or Graff, Jacob 

243, 246 
Op den Graeff, Abraham . . .316 
protests against slavery .310 
Dirck, protests against slav- 
ery 310 

Opden Graeffs, of Germantown .310 
Oratory at the University of 

Pennsylvania 424, 425 

Oswego 73 

Palatinate 228 

Palmer, , of Connecticut . 220 

Pannebecker, Hendrick . . 230, 235 

236, 240, 243, 245, 246 

249, 250, 251, 252, 253 

Biography of . . . 226, 319 

a man of parts . . . 226, 227 

represented Matthias Van 

Bebber 234 

His handwriting .... 240 
owns Bebber's township . 254 
owns other lands . . . .254 
His influence . 25^, 255, 256 
Paoli, Battle of .... 17, 214 
Paper mill, the first in America 

204, 3 10 
Park, Gen. John G. . . . 188, 375 
Parker's ford in the campaign for 

Philadelphia 260 

Parker, Edward 260 

Parry, Col. Caleb 231 

Parthenon 82, 307 

Passmore, Thomas 118 



INDEX 



479 



Pastorius, Francis Daniel . 205, 228 
236, 240, 250, 435 
protests against slavery . .310 
publishes his *' Four Treat- 
ises " 310, 435 

fluent writer in eight lan- 
guages 311 

publishes his primer . . .315 
studies at Altdorf . . . .320 

His teachers 320 

Patroons of Pennsylvania, The 

Dutch 226-256 

Pattison, Gen. James (British) . 223 
Pawling, John . . . 243, 246, 248 
Payne's Universal Geography . 314 
Peak, Rembrandt . . . . i i o, i i 2 

Peale's Museum 176 

Pedagogy, The earliest American 

essay upon 237, 312 

Pemberton, Israel 227 

Penn, Richard 440 

Thomas 202, 440 

443> 454 

Penn, William . 196, 197, 199, 229 

242, 434 

His "Holy Experiment" . 184 

grants land on the Skippack 

227, 228 

His liberality 282 

His impress on American 

government 307 

and the Indian chief. Story 

of 320 

His breadth 433 

a profuse writer 434 

His frame of government . 436 



Pennsylvania 133, 196 

adopts the constitution of 

the United States . . .163 
Anonymous attack upon . .172 
attracted men of learning 

434' 435 

financed the Revolution . .189 

financed the war of 1 8 i 2 

185, 189 

financed the war of the Re- 
bellion 189 

furnished the general who 
won the crucial battle of 
the war of the Rebellion . 189 

furnished more troops to the 
war of 1 8 I 2 than any 
other state 185 

conspicuous for the eminence 
of her soldiers . . . .371 

had more generals in the war 
of the Rebellion than any 
other state 375 

had the largest percentage of 
killed of any state in the 
war of the Rebellion . .375 

has no debt and borrows no 
money 173 

has always stood for religious 
liberty 177 

has always opposed slavery . 179 

had fourteen commanders of 
armies and corps, and 
forty eight general officers 
in the war of the Rebellion 188 

was responsible for the suc- 
cess of the union . . .282 



480 



INDEX 



Pennsylvania was the only state 
with an entire division in the 

war of the Rebellion 11, 188 
was the first state to abolish 

slavery 180 

was the first state to arm its 
troops in the war of the 

rebellion 187 

was the first state to get 

troops to Washington in 

the war of the Rebellion . 188 

was the first state to pass an 

act calling the people to 

arms 372 

was the only state to have a 
regiment in the Philip- 
pines 141 

was represented in the An- 
napolis convention . . .162 
is the keystone state . . .141 
voted for the Louisiana Pur- 
chase 140, 141 

The people of 190 

The Dutch patroons of . .226 
Gen. Washington in . 1 44-1 71 
Wickersham's "History of 

Education in" . . . .433 
Response of, to the procla- 
mations of Lincoln and 
Curtin of June 15 th, 

1863 388 

Penn's frame of government 

for 436 

assembly thanks Wayne . . 36 
college students at Gettys- 
burg 389 



PennsylvaniaDutchman 309-3 i 8 

'♦Girl," The 169 

"Idea" in national politics 307 
Historical Society . .1,4,81 
Hospital, Matthias Koplin's 

gift to the . . . .312,313 
legislature the first to pass an 
act to arm troops during 
the war of the Rebellion . 372 
Line in the Revolution 

II, 12, 135 

Line at Monmouth . . 25, 26 

at Stony Point . . . .215 

in Virginia 46 

the most faithful of all the 

Revolutionary troops . 40 
trusted by Washington 38, 39 
a third ot the whole army 

under Washington . 39, 40 
Bravery of the . 25, 26, 48 
Grievances of the . . 40—44 
Distresses of the . . 40—44 
The so-called revolt of 
the, and its causes . 39—45 
Magazine of History and 
Biography . 309, 319, 327 

4i3> 433 
money 241 

officers in the Revolution 
faithful when others re- 
signed 40 

commended by Lafayette 48 

"Pilgrim" 240 

printing houses 436 

Regiment of Infantry, 26th 
Emergency . . , 384-407 



I ND EX 



481 



Pennsylvania 7th regiment . 188, 374 
Society for Promoting the 

Abolition of Slavery . .178 
Society of Sons of the Rev- 
olution I 

State Capitol .... 306-308 
State House .... 156, 162 
supreme executive council 
thanks Wayne and the 
Pennsylvania Line . . 36, 37 
troops in Canada . 6, 7, 8, 10 
saved Washington city in 

1861 188 

at Stony Point . . 215, 225 

in war of Rebellion 374, 375 

University of . 4, 144, 168, 170 

171, 190, 408-455 

celebrates Washington's 

birthday 144 

in its relation to the state 

433-455 
charters . 410, 411,437, 440 
441, 442, 449, 450 
law school 1 66, 167, 1 76,45 I 
medical school . . 176, 451 
trustees organized . . . 448 
Origin of the, in 1740 

408-432, 442 
Legislative grants to the .451 

452, 453» 454 
Oratory at the . . 424, 425 
See also Academy, Char- 
ity School, College. 
and Massachusetts . .172—194 
Pennsylvanians seldom go to Mas- 
sachusetts to live 176 



Pennypacker family in the war of 

the Rebellion 375 

Gen. Galusha . . . 204, 375 

Matthias 265, 267 

Samuel Whitaker . . . .121 
descended from Herman- 

nus Kuster . . . .232 
His " Hendrick Panne- 

becker" 319 

His *♦ Settlement of Ger- 

mantown" . . . .319 
at the battle of Gettys- 
burg 392 

Pennypacker's Mills . 233, 246, 248 
Council of war at . . . 17, 20 

Washington at 278 

Penrose, Bartholomew .... 10 

Jonathan j 66 

Pepper, Dr. William . 169, 190, 315 

Pepys, Samuel 196 

Perkasie, The manor of . . . .443 

Perkiomen, Valley of the . 132, 134 

creek . . 204, 229, 233, 245 

246, 264, 278 

township 230 

Perry's victory on Lake Erie . . 73 
"Personne" of the Charleston 

Courier 368 

Peters, Sally 13 

Peters, (commissary) . . 51 

Judge Richard . iio, 117, 439 

address to the trustees of 

the academy . . 420, 421 

422, 423, 424 

Petersen, Dr. Johann Wilhelm . 320 

Peticoodiac river, in Canada . . 5 



482 



INDEX 



Pettit, Thomas McKean . 119, 120 

Phelps, , of Connecticut . 220 

Philadelphia i, 23, 258 

the chief city of the colonies i 58 
Revolutionary campaign 
around . 158-160, 258-279 

a patriotie city 164 

the official home of Wash- 
ington 164 

distance from sea a disad- 
vantage 175 

the metropolis of the country 257 
taken by the British . . .277 
brigade at Gettysburg . 376,382 
of the west, St. Louis the . 130 

Philippines 382 

Pennsylvania the only state 
to have a regiment in the 141 
Phoenixville, Address at . . .257 

Monument at 257 

South 272 

the high water mark of the 
British invasion . . 257-279 

Picart 198, 199 

Pickering, Timothy . . . 68, 140 

creek 267, 280 

Pickett, Gen, George E., at Get- 
tysburg .... 376, 382, 396 

Pilgrims at Plymouth 200 

Pine Forge, Pa 255 

Pitt, William 285 

Pittsburg 65, 135, 136 

Washington at site of . . .149 
Plockhoy, Peter Cornelius 

178, 179, 310 
Plumer, Senator 139 



Plymouth, Mass 200 

settled twenty years before 
it had a school . . . .176 
Poem — The Battle of the Wooden 

Sword 97—101 

Poger, George 246 

Pool Forge, Pa 255 

Portsmouth, Va 46, 48 

Port Providence, Pa 274 

Post 19, G. A. R. (Col. Fred- 
erick Taylor post) .... 364 
Potomac, Army of the . . 188, 374 

384. 394 

Potts family 3 

Potts Grove 266 

Poulson's Daily Advertiser . .109 

Pratt, Judge Joseph T 121 

Presque Isle 74 

Presbyterians and the University 

of Pennsylvania . . .417 
"Looking Glass for" . .417 
representation on the board 
of trustees of the Univer- 



sity 



448 



Presidency of the United States . 382 
Princeton, Battle of . . . 158, 182 
Printing, Premium for excellency 

of 314 

at Lancaster 314 

houses of Pennsylvania . .436 
Prinzen Hof at Delft .... 82 
P'-obst, Anton, Trial of. . . .122 
Protection for American indus- 
tries. The "Pennsylvania 
Idea" wrought out by the 
Careys 189 



I N D EX 



483 



Province island, British works on 2 1 
Publisliing house. The oldest in 

America 204 

Pulaski, Count 23 

Purchase of Louisiana . . 127—143 
Purdy, Alexander, soldier printer 67 

Purviance, Samuel 203 

Putnam, Gen. Israel 210 

Co!. Rufus . . . 64, 134, 215 
Pyramids of Egypt 82 

Quakers. See Friends. 

Quay, Joseph 283 

Anderson Beaton . . . .283 
Matthew Stanley . . 191, 192 
193, 194, 280-305 
a great statesman . . .192 
His defence of the rights 
of the Delaware In- 
dians 282 

a typical Pennsylvanian . 282 
born at Dillsburg . . .283 
unequalled as an organizer 288 

Quebec 147 

Gen. Wolf at 147 

Col. Meigs at 215 

Quedlinburg 249, 250 

Quincy, Josiah 139, 184 

Radnor, St. David's Episcopal 

church at 3 

Ralston, John . . .261, 262, 263 

Rambo, Peter 247 

Ramsay, David. Oration on 

Washington 182 

Randolph, Beverly 68 



Read, James, defends the Acad- 
emy 429 

Thomas Buchanan. His 
lines on General Peter 

Muhlenberg . . 317-318 
His prophecy in " The 
Wagoner of the Alle- 
ghanies" about Abra- 
ham Lincoln . . 364—365 
His "New Pastoral" .365 
Reading, Pa., in the campaign 

for Philadelphia 261,263,264 

in the civil war 373 

Furnace, Pa 255 

Rebellion, War of the . . 364-380 
Gettysburg . . . .381-383 

Its purpose 377 

26th Penna. Emergency In- 
fantry 384-407 

Reed, Gen. Joseph . . 42, 43, 447 

William B 125 

Reformation 145, 196 

Regiment, 26th Emergency In- 
fantry 384-407 

Reichardt, Johannes 247 

ReifF, Franklin S., of Skippack- 

ville 226 

Conrad 247 

George 247 

Hans 247 

Hans George 240 

Peter 247 

Reilly, Andrew Jackson .... 81 
Reinhart, Luke Frederick . . .320 
Remke, Govert, of Crefeld . 227, 228 
Renberg, Dirck 231,252 



484 



INDEX 



Renberg, William . . . . 231, 252 
Republican party restored by M. 

S. Quay 194 

Resignations from the continental 

army 40 

Not by Pennsylvania officers 40 

Reynolds, Gen. John F. . 188, 375 

376, 405 

Rhine river 201 

Rhode Island 163 

represented in the Abolition 

convention 180 

Rhoads farm on French creek .275 

Richardson, Capt. Joseph ... 5 

Jacob 273, 274 

Richelieu, Cardinal 283 

Rickett's circus 165 

Ridge road 263 

Ritner, Gov. Joseph . . . 314, 317 

Rittenhouse, David . 165, 169, 204 

231. 3^3. 448 
Thomas Jefferson's opinion 

of 313 

Fort 118 

William, builds first paper 
mill in America . . . .310 

Rittinghuysen 204 

Roberts, John . . .245, 246, 247 
writes a petition to the gov- 
ernor . 245, 246, 247, 248 
Robinson, Thomas . . . 272, 273 
Rodes, Gen. Robert E., C.S. A., 

at Gettysburg .... 394, 405 
Roman. See Catholic. 

Roosevelt, Theodore 383 

Winning of the west . 135, 138 



Roosevelt visits Gettysburg . .381 
Rosecrans, Gen. William S. . . 204 

Rossiter, Elizabeth 266 

Rotterdam 196, 228 

Roxborough township, David 

Rittenhouse born in .... 204 

Rubicon, Passage of the . . .373 

Rush, Benjamin . 12, 169, 179, 231 

His opinion of Wayne . . 35 

Ruth, Heinrich 246 

Sachse, Julius F 81, 319 

Saddi, Chronicles of Nathan Ben 3 

St. Clair, Gen. Arthur 74, 134, 136 

Campaign against the In- 
dians . 63,69, 70, 115, 164 

in command of the Penn- 
sylvania Line 29 

St. David's Episcopal church at 

Radnor 3 

St. James's Episcopal church . . 246 

St. John's river, Canada ... 5 

St. Lawrence river 147 

St. Louis, Mo 130 

the Philadelphia of the west 130 

fair 127 

St. Peter's at Rome . . . 82, 307 

Salem, Mass 190 

Salford, Pa 254 

Sandy, Gen. Wayne's negro boy 75 
San Juan Hill, The battle of . .382 
Santiago, The battle of . . . .382 

Saur, Christopher 204 

His " Ein Abgenothigter 

Bericht" 331 

publishes his Bible . . . .311 



I N D EX 



485 



Saur, Christian, publishes his Tes- 
tament 311 

publishes his Geist Itches 
Magazien 312 

earliest type founder . . .312 

His quarrel with Conrad 
Beissel 327-363 

publishes the " Zionitischer 
Weyrauch's Hiigel" . .328 

Account of him in the Chro- 
nicon Ephratense . 328—331 

His account of his contro- 
versy with Conrad Beissel 

331-363 
His objections to the hymn 
** Weil die Wolcken-Seul 
aufbricht" . 342, 343, 344 

345-363 
His work on the "Zionit- 

ischerWeyrauch's Hiigel" 343 

Beissel' s letter to . . 352-363 

His letter to Beissel . 343-352 

Savannah, The British in . . . 53 

Siege of 55-62 

evacuated 62 

Wayne at 78 

river , . 54, 55 

Saxe, Marshall 10 

Say, Thomas 314 

Scammell, Col. Alexander . 27, 28 

Scarooyadi 149 

Scheimer, Jacob 243 

Schmidt, Christopher 247 

Scholl, Johannes . . . .232, 246 

School at Skippack 237 

Schools, Controllers of the public i 1 7 



Schotte, Dr 351, 333 

Schrayer, Andrew 252 

" Schul Ordnung " written by 

Christopher Dock 312 

Schumacher, Peter 228 

Schurz, Gen. Carl 204 

Schuyler, Gen. Philip . . 8, 70, 78 

Miss II 

Schuylkill river 280 

campaign for Philadelphia 260,264 
Various fords of the — 

Gordon's . 270, 271, 274 

Fatland . 264, 265, 271 

273, 277 

Parker's 260 

Long 271 

township 280 

Schwaeger, John Conrad . . .320 

Schwartz, Abraham 247 

Schwenckfeld, Caspar . . . .197 

Schwenckfelders . .201, 204, 321 

Their Gedachtniss Tag . .311 

Bibliography of the . . .312 

Scott, Walter 196 

Col. of 37th Va. regiment, 

C.S.A 368 

Scull's map of Pennsylvania . .230 
Search, England's right of, de- 
fended by New England con- 
gressmen during war of 1 8 1 2 . 186 
Searle, James, trustee of the Uni- 
versity 448 

Searson, John, in 1797, speaks 

of the College and Academy 415, 416 
Secession first broached by New 

England 185 



486 



I N D EX 



Secession of the southern states . 367 
Sectarians of Pennsylvania . . .436 
Seelig, Johann Gottfried . 319—326 

His contributions to the 
Hymn-book of the Her- 
mits of the Wissahickon .322 

Translation of a hymn by 

324-326 
Seidensticker, Oswald . . 205, 319 

Selden, , of Connecticut . 220 

Sellen, Adam 246 

Henry 235, 239 

Sergeant, Thomas i 20 

Shaftesbury, Earl of 286 

Shakespeare .... 162, 167, 196 
Sharsvvood, George . 120, 121, 125 

169 

Shawanese Indians 248 

Sheeder's History of Vincent . 261 

Sheimer, Jacob 247 

Shenandoah valley, in Virginia .132 

Sheppard, Furman 125 

Sherman, Col. , opinion of 

Wayne 36 

Gen. Tecumseh . . . .189 
Shick, A. W., at Gettysburg . . 393 
Shippen, Edw^ard .... 227, 437 

William, Wistar's eulogium 

on 439, 448 

Shippensburg, Pa 398 

Shouler, Gabriel 246 

Shulze, Gov. John Andrew . .314 
Shunk, Gov. Francis Rahn . . .314 

Sigel, Gen. Franz 204 

Silesia 197 

Simcoe's Rangers at Monmouth . 25 



Simcoe, Col. John Graves (Brit- 
ish), in Indian campaign in 

the west 68 

Simm, Col. 45 

Simmons, Anthony 120 

Simons, Menno . . 197, 199, 201 

Sims, John C 408 

Sipman, Dirck . . .227, 228, 229 

Sitgreaves, 97 

Skippack, The people of . 234, 235 

Skippack,The 201,232,245,249,321 

Bebber's lands upon . . . 229 

burying ground . . . .236 

Mennonite meeting house 

on the 232, 238 

Christopher Dock, **the pi- 
ous schoolmaster on" . .237 

township 230 

road 233, 235 

and Perkiomen township . 242 
Skippackville . . . 226, 240, 274 
Whitefield preached at . .233 
Slavery first denounced in Penn- 
sylvania 178 

Germantown's protest 

against 178, 310 

Penna. Abolition Society . 178 

Penna. always opposed . .179 

passed the first legislative 

act abolishing . . .180 

caused the civil war . . .366 

the basis of the " Southern 

Confederacy" . . . .367 

Smith, Bastian 247 

Jonathan Bayard, trustee of 
the University of Penna. . 448 



INDEX 



487 



Smith, Richard, Trial of . . .122 

Gen. , .... 188, 375 

Brig. Gen. , C.S.A., 

at Gettysburg 400 

Rev. William . . 5, 442, 443 
444, 445, 449 
appointed provost of the 

University of Penna. . 442 
born in Aberdeen . . . 442 
antagonizes the Quakers . 444 
His attainments .... 444 
His description of the 
academy . . . 423, 424 

marries 444 

quarrels with the Pennsyl- 
vania assembly 445,446,447 
Dr. Stillle's Life of 433, 442 
William, of Bebber's town- 
ship 247 

Gen. William F. , at Get- 
tysburg . . . 397, 398, 399 
Smith's White House .... 38 

Snyder, Gov. Simon 314 

Society of the Woman in the Wil- 
derness 319 

(For full account see "Pen- 

nypacker's "Settlement of Ger- 

mantown and his "Hendrick 

Pannebecker.") 

Somerset, Pa., First Bible west 

of the Alleghenies printed at . 312 
South American States . . . .161 
South Carolina troops at Fort 

Necessity 151 

South Valley hill in 1777, Amer- 
icans at 260 



Southwark Theatre 165 

Southwick, Daniel and Provided 
sold by the Massachusetts court 

into slavery 178 

Sower, Christopher. See Saur, 
Christopher. 

Spain in America 138 

Spain's war with the Dutch . . 373 
Spanish war. Attitude of Philadel- 
phia and of Boston toward the 189 
Spear's "The North and the 

South" quoted 407 

Spencer, Sergt. , of Virginia 221 

Spotswood, Col. Alexander, his 

opinion of Wayne 35 

Spring, Arthur, Trial of . . .122 
Springsteel, David, farmer . . .218 
Sprogell, Anna Maria . . 250, 251 

Catharina 251 

John Henry 250 

Lodowick Christian . 249, 250 
251, 253, 254 

Stamp act 156 

Stansbury, , Recollections 

and anecdotes of presidents of 

the United States loi 

Stanton, Edwin M. . 188, 375, 388 
389, 390, 391, 394, 397 

Stapleton, Rev. A 227 

Starr, Joseph 269, 272 

His farm 273, 274 

Star Spangled Banner . . . .374 

Stauffer, Daniel 247 

Jacob 247 

Henry 247 

Steadman, Fort 375 



488 



I N D EX 



Steele, George, at Gettysburg . 393 
Steinwehr, Gen. Adolph von, 

U. S. A 204 

Stephen, Gen. Adam, opinion of 

Wayne 36 

Stern, Gen. , (Hessian) . 265 

Steuben, Baron, his opinion ot 

Wayne 36 

Stevens, Thaddeus 286 

Stewart, Col. Walter 42 

at Monmouth . . . . 25, 29 

Stiegel, Baron 310 

Stille, Dr. C.J 39. I37 

His •< Memoir of William 

Smith" 433, 442 

Stirling, Gen. Alexander, Lord . 28 

Stockton, Richard 125 

Stone, Frederick D. .81, 426, 427 
428, 429, 430, 433 

Stoner, Christian 247 

Stony Point . 30,31, 135, 210, 211 
the gateway of the High- 
lands 30 

The British garrison of . . 31 

32, 212, 213 

The fortifications of .31,212 

213 
stormed and captured by 
Wayne . . 32, 33, 34, 35 
36, 135, 208—225 

Description of 212 

Park at 79, 208 

Dawson's "Assault upon" 208 
Johnston's "Storming of " . 208 
Washington's plan for the 
assault upon 216 



Stony Point contrasted with the 

battle of Bunker Hill . .183 

contrasted with other battles 224 

Storms, the pass at 39 

Stray er, Andrew 232 

Stroud, Judge George M. . . .120 
Stuart, Gilbert, portrait of Wash- 
ington 166 

Gen. J. E. B. (C.S.A.),at 
Gettysburg . . . 403, 405 
Sugar Loaf hill, on the Hudson .210 
Sullivan, Gen. John . . . 7, 18, 16 

Sergt. Thomas (British) .275 
Sulzberger, Judge Mayer . , .121 

Summer, Jacob I 20 

Sumter, Fort 372 

Supreme court of the U. S. . .378 

Susquehanna, The 233 

Swamp road ... .... 277 

Swanwick, John 88, 90 

writes ♦' On a Walk in the 
State House Yard" . . 90 

Swarthmore College 190 

System of Modern Geography 
published at Atlanta, Ga. . .366 

Taney, Chief Justice Roger B. . 378 
Tarleton, Col. Banister (British) . 49 
Taylor, Bayard, "Story of Ken- 

nett" 169 

Taylor, Christopher 436 

Taylor — Col. Frederick Taylor 

Post, G. A. R 364 

Tea tax resolutions, originated 

in Philadelphia, were adopted 

by Boston without change . . l8l 



INDEX 



489 



Teissen, Matthias 243 

Tennessee 115, 133 

represented in Abolition 

convention 180 

riflemen 224 

East, in the civil war . . .370 

Tetvv^eiller, Hans 243 

Teutlinger, Henry 247 

Teutonic race 195 

wanderers 129 

Texas has more population than 

Massachusetts 175 

Thackeray, Wm. Makepeace, 
the first edition of his first 
work published in Philadel- 
phia 176 

Thatcher, George 179 

Thayer, Judge M. Russell . . . i 20 
Thomas, Gen. George H. . .189 
Thompson, Gen. William . . . 6, 7 
Three Rivers, Canada, fight at . 7 

Ticonderoga 7, 8, 1 1 

Todd, John 131 

Levi 131 

Townshend, Lord Charles . . .223 

Trappe, The 277 

Trenton, N. J 24 

Battle of ... 8, 158, 159 
182, 208 
Truxton, Com. Thomas . . .115 
Tryon, Gov. William. Opera- 
tions in Connecticut . . 210, 211 
Tulpehocken, German settlement 

at 245 

♦♦Turtel Taube," printed at 
Ephrata 312 



Twenty-sixth Pennsylvania emer- 
gency infantry .... 384-407 

Type founder, the earliest in 
America 312 

Tyson, Reynier, of Germantown 201 
Matthias 247 

Ulrich, A. Stanley, at Gettys- 
burg 392, 393 

Umstat, Johannes . . 230, 243, 252 
Uniontown, Fayette Co., Pa. . 149 

U. S. Bank 114 

U. S. constitution 192 

U. S. mint established , , 114, 164 

U. S. Senate, Description of . . 93 

a millionaires' club . . .191 

U. S. Steel Corporation . . . ,153 

U. S. Supreme Court 378 

University of Pennsylvania. See 
Pennsylvania. 

Valley Forge . . i, 21, 22, 23, 79 

147, 160, 209, 232, 264 

265, 266, 267, 273, 280 

Van Bebber. See Better. 

Van Braam, Jacob . . . 149, 152 

Vanderslice, Henry 255 

Van Metre, 131 

Van Rensselaer grant at Albany . 236 

Vendee, La 370 

Vermont 114 

Verplanck's point . . . . 210, 211 
Vicksburg in the war of the Re- 
bellion 152 

Vincent, Township of ... . 4 
Sheeder's MS. history of .261 



490 



I N D EX 



Virginia . 133, 154, 163, 167, 178 
represented in the Annapolis 

convention 162 

represented in the Abolition 

convention i8o 

produced eminent soldiers .371 
troops at Monmouth ... 2; 
troops in the western cam- 
paign 65 

troops at Stony Point . 215, 225 

Voltaire 184 

Volweiller, Hans 243 

Vossen, Arnold van 243 

Wagner, Susanna Margaretta . . 249 

Michael, composer . . . .250 

< 'Wagoner of the Alleghanies " . 365 

Wallace, John William — address 

upon the inauguration of the 

new hall of the historical society 8 1 

Walpole, Horace 152 

Wanamaker, John .... 192, 315 
Wansey, Henry, describes Con- 
gress Hall 89, 90 

War of 1 8 1 2 

financed by a Pennsylvanian 1 8 5 
New England opposed to it 185 
Massachusetts opposed to it 185 
More troops from Pennsyl- 
vania than any other state 1 8 5 
caused threats of secession 
from New England . .186 
War of the Rebellion , . . 364-380 

Gettysburg 381-383 

26th Pennsylvania emer- 
gency regiment . 384-407 



War of the Rebellion. The first 
troops were from Penn- 
sylvania . . . . 188, 373 
Its results to the country . 377 
made the country a nation . 378 
Warren Tavern, Battle of . 158, 159 

259, 260 

Warwick Furnace, Pa. . .255, 260 

Washington, Bushrod . . . .117 

Washington, George . i, 2, 8, 11, 12 

13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 23, 24 

25, 26, 27, 30, 32, 37, 38 

39, 41, 43, 48, 53, 63, 78 

87, 96, 108, 109, 1 10, III 

125, 134, 135, 209, 211 

222, 223, 235, 258 

at Great Meadows . . .149 

at Mt. Vernon . . . 160, 161 

at Pennypacker's Mills . .278 

at Pottsgrove 276 

at Wilmington 258 

birthday celebrations at the 

University of Penna. , 144 
Counties named after . . .136 
delegate to the first conti- 
nental congress . . . .156 
delegate to the second conti- 
nental congress . . . .157 
depended on Pennsylvania 

troops 182 

delivering his farewell ad- 
dress 1 13, 1 14 

elected commander in chief . 157 
Extract from the journal of . 155 
first called ♦♦ father of his 
country " 160 



INDEX 



491 



Washington first spoken of as 

"first in war, etc." . .167 
the first troops to reach him 

at Cambridge . . . .313 
goes with Braddock . . .153 
holds West Point . . . .210 
inaugurated president of the 

United States . . .101-106 
in the campaign of 1777 

258-279 
in Pennsylvania . . . 144-171 
lived at Sixth and Market 

streets 164 

president of the federal con- 
stitutional convention of 

1787 162, 163 

spends his official life in 

Philadelphia . . . 164, 167 
sent against the French by 

Gov. Dinwiddle , . .148 
surrenders to the French . 152 
Tenacity of purpose of . .160 

Martha 167 

city saved by Pennsylvania 

troops 188 

county. Pa 65 

Fort 8 

Waterloo, Battle of 376 

Wayne, Anthony, grandfather of 

Gen. Anthony Wayne . 3 

Gen. Anthony 1-80 

at battle of Germantown . .15 
16, 19, 20, 214 
at Cooper's Ferry, N. J. . . 23 
at Paoli . . . . 17, 214, 264 
at Haddonfield, N. J. . , 23 



Wayne, Gen. Anthony, at Valley 

Forge 22, 23 

at Monmouth . 24, 25, 26, 214 
at Yorktown . . . 50, 51, 52 
at the battle of Fallen Tim- 
bers 73, 135-138 

at Ticonderoga . . . 9, 10, 1 1 
attempts to found a colony 

in Canada 5 

and the "revolt" of the 

Pennsylvania line . .41-45 
assumes pecuniary responsi- 
bility for sick soldiers . . 49 
born in Easttown, Chester 

county 2 

captures Stony Point . . 32, 33 
34» 35> 36, 184, 208-225 
Brigadier General .... 11 
Character of . . 74, 75, 76, yj 
78, 79, 80, ZI4 
colonel of the Fourth Penn- 
sylvania regiment ... 6 
commissioner to Detroit . . 74 
Counties named after . . .136 

Death of 74 

defends the reputation of the 

Pennsylvania troops . , 28 
disliked Benedict Arnold . 38 
forages in New Jersey . . 22 
Home life of . . . 28, 29, 33 
in the Canada campaign . 7 
in the campaign against 
the Indians 

64, 115, 164, 214 
in the campaign for Phila- 
delphia 264 



492 



INDEX 



Wayne, Gen. Anthony, in South 

Carolina and Georgia . 53, 54 

55. 56, 57» 58,59' 60, 61 

62, 64 

in Virginia . 43,44,45,46,214 

in New Jersey . . 11, 12, 13 

member of committee of 

safety 6 

member of Pennsylvania leg- 
islature 6 

member of Pennsylvania 
convention to adopt the 
federal constitution ... 6 
praised by Washington at 

Monmouth 26 

recommends attack on Howe 2 3 
recommends attack on New 

York 23 

Residence, of, outraged by 

the British 18 

Statue of, at Valley Forge . i 
voted a medal by congress . 37 
Isaac, father of Gen. Wayne 3 
Isaac, son of Gen. Wayne . 57 

Peggy 29, 52, 57 

Polly, wife of Gen. Wayne 
and daughter of Bart. 
Penrose 10,28,45,57,74,75 

Weber, Christian 247 

Webster, Daniel 183 

a compromiser 193 

called "Ichabod" by Whit- 
tier 193 

not a great statesman . . .193 

Reply to Hayne 377 

Noah 178 



Weicrman, Hans 247 

"Weil die Wolcken-Seul auf- 
bricht," the hymn that 
caused the quarrel be- 
tween Conrad Beissel and 
Christopher Saur . . .330 
The German text and Eng- 
lish translation . . 337—342 
Saur's objections to the 

hymn 352—363 

Weinman, John 320 

Weirman, Willem 243 

Weiser, Conrad 316 

Weitzel, Gen. Godfrey, U.S.A. 204 
Weld, Isaac, describes Congress 

Hall 85 

Welker's Mill, Pa 248 

West, The. Roosevelt's "Win- 
ning of the" 135 

The settlement of . 127-143 

West, Benjamin 170 

His "Death of Wolfe" .170 
His " Penn's Treaty with 

the Indians" 1 70 

Westcott, Thompson. History 

of Philadelphia . . 81, 117 
on the origin of the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania . . 426 

Westminster Abbey 82 

Westmoreland County, Pa. . . 65 

Westover, Va 50 

West Point . 38, 39, 209, 210, 211 

Wetzel, Lewis 131 

Wharton, Robert 166 

Thomas 276 

Whiskey insurrection , . 115, 164 



INDEX 



493 



Whitaker, Joseph 274 

Right Rev. Ozi .... 408 
White, R. v., C.S.A., at Get- 
tysburg . 384,387,391,393,400 
401, 402, 403, 405 
White, Rev. William .... 87 
Whitcfield, Rev. George . 233, 412 
415, 416, 438 
a trustee of the College and 
Academy .... 422, 423 
White Horse road .... 265, 272 
Whitemarsh, Battle of . . 158, 159 
Whitmer, Henry . . . . 391, 392 
Whittier, John Greenleaf . . .193 
Whittier's Pennsylvania Pilgrim .317 
Lines on Gov. Joseph Ritner 3 1 7 
Wickersham's History of Edu- 
cation in Pennsylvania . . .433 
Wide Marsh or Farmer's Mill .235 

Wier, , British commissary 

general 277 

•* Wilderness road" over the Al- 

leghenies 133 

Wilkinson, Gen. James . . . 7, 108 

William of Orange 379 

Abraham Lincoln as great as 131 
Washington unlike . . . .157 
William Penn Charter school 

opened 437 

Williamsburg, Va 149 

Williamsport 385 

Wilmington, Del 2, 15 

Washington at 258 

Wilson, James 166, 451 

Wiseman, Thomas 231 

Wissahickon creek . 204, 229, 310 



Wissahickon creek. Hermits of 

the 319-326 

Wistar, Dr. Caspar 166 

Caspar 314, 439 

family 319 

Gen. Isaac 204 

parties 314 

Witches hanged in Massachusetts 174 

Wittenberg 196 

<' Wo bistu mein Taublein !" a 
hymn by Johann Gottfried See- 

lig 324-326 

Wohlfahrt, Michael — Brother 
Agonius, of the Ephrata clois- 
ter 351 

Wolfe, Gen. James, at Quebec . 147 

Wolf, Gov. George 314 

Wolfsheim, in the Palatinate . .232 

Wolsey, Cardinal 286 

Woman in the Wilderness, So- 
ciety of -319 

See Pennypacker's "Settle- 
ment of Germantown"and his 
*' Hendrick Pannebecker." 
Wood, Capt. of the 37th Va. 

regiment, C. S. A 368 

Woolley, Edmund 429 

Wrightsville, Engagement at 393-395 

Yale University's claims to an- 
tiquity 431 

Yates, Brig. Gen. Charles, at 
Gettysburg 398 

Yelger's Mill, Pa 248 

Yellow Springs in campaign of 
1777 260, 261 



494 



INDEX 



Yerkes, Charles T. , of Philadel- 
phia 315 

telescope in Chicago . . .315 

York river, Va 46 

turnpike, near Gettysburg . 393 

county. Pa 313, 314 

Yorktown, Siege of . 52, 158, 209 

Young, David 247 

"Young Quaker, or the Fair Phil- 
adelphian," a play produced 
at the Southwark Theatre . .135 

Yrujo, Chevalier d' . 105, 109, iio 

Yungling, Abraham 255 



Zeisberger, David 



. 205, 316 



Zeltner, Gustave George. His 
<'Vitae Theologorum Altor- 

phinorum" 320 

Zenger, John Peter 204 

Ziegler, Michael 235, 239, 243, 247 
Zimmerman, Christopher . . .232 

Zimmerman's Mill, Pa 248 

Zinzendorf, Count . . . 310, 435 
Zionitischer Weyrauch's Hiigel 

328-363 
first German book printed 

in America 328 

Saur speaks of his work on it 343 

Zuinglius, Ulrich 197 

Zuydt river the Delaware river .310 



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